An article in the San Francisco Chronicle (31 March) outlines the process by which awards were given by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the state’s new $3 billion stem cell research programme. Public peer-review is a central component. According to the Chronicle, a panel of out-of-state experts ranked the proposals in private meetings, and the identities of the also-rans were not revealed. But the names of the successful applicants, and surprisingly candid summaries of the panel’s reviews, were made public on the stem cell agency’s web site. As the Chronicle put it: “the summaries offer a rare glimpse into the traditionally cloistered world of scientific peer review.” So far as I am aware, this is not so much rare as unprecedented.

The full Chronicle article can be seen here.