SF State students will reap the benefits of the stem cell grant awarded to SF State, which will provide student stipends for a new masters program this fall.

The university was approved for $1.7 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to study stem cell technology, and advance the field of regenerative medicine.

Eleven other CSUs were approved for the research funding, totaling $16 million from CIRM, a state agency created to distribute nearly $3 billion in bond funding approved by the passage of Proposition 71 in 2004, according to a CSU press release.

The grant would go to a new, two-year masters cohort program titled SFSU Bridges to Stem Cell Research. Beginning this fall, it will accept 10 students each year.

All students accepted into the program will receive a $30,000 scholarship for a lab research internship they will have to complete during their second year. The grant would fund the stem cell program for three years.

"Our goal is to train a diverse workforce staff to prepare for careers in stem cell research (and) reflect the diversity of the state of California in the area of stem cell technology," said Carmen Domingo, the developmental biology professor who will oversee the execution of the program.

Diversity is the key word, as the student selection committee will look for ethnic minorities underrepresented in the sciences, according to Domingo.

Domingo said she hopes that these students will use the training opportunity to pursue careers where they develop innovative treatments that best serve the health needs of all communities across the state.

"It is important for us as a society to make sure that the technologies that we develop can be accessible to all the members of our society and not just to the wealthiest members of our society," Domingo said.

Students, like Marisa Leal, a cell and molecular biology graduate student, will be able to apply mid-April for the limited slots.

Leal, who is fascinated by stem cell technology, hopes to be one of the first to take part in the program.

"I have a lot of family with diabetes and it would be amazing to one day make pancreas cells to help their insulin production," said the 25-year-old. "We could help a lot of people all over the world who suffer from various diseases."

Domingo calculated that $1.2 million of the grant would go to student scholarships. The rest would go to program administration, a new General Education course on stem cell biology and partner institutions where research internships will be conducted.

Leal works in the lab at least nine hours a day, even on weekends, and thinks it's great students will profit greatly from the grant.

"Students should get scholarships that would enable them to survive in the expensive Bay Area since they can't work because they put so much time into their research," she said.

Domingo says the program will make sure the students are trained for the stem cell workforce.

"We want to prove ourselves to the funders and hope to renew the grant for another three years," Domingo said.