California universities investing in stem-cell research

Universities throughout California will soon embark on an $830 million building blitz to create laboratories for stem cell science. Financed with voter-approved bond money, the facilities will free scientists to do work opposed by the Bush administration. The construction boom is beginning at a time when many predict that a new president — whether Barack Obama or John McCain — will lift federal restrictions on embryonic stem cell research after the November election. But regardless of what happens in the election, the new laboratories will be needed to provide space for an expanding corps of scientists and novel research teams assembling throughout the state, stem cell leaders say.

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