First the story, then the questions.

DOYLE OUTLINES MAJOR BIOTECH, HEALTH SCIENCES, STEM CELL RESEARCH INITIATIVE

Gov. Doyle today outlined a major initiative on biotechnology, health sciences and stem cell research he said will keep Wisconsin's leadership in all three fields. The program calls for a new $375 million research institute (Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the UW-Madison); a new $134 million HealthStar Interdisciplinary Research Complex (near the UW Hospital and Clinics in Madison); a new $132 million research facility at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Children's Hospital "to focus on infectious disease control, cardiovascular illnesses and bioengineering.

In addition, Doyle said there would propose $1.5 million annually to support a new Alzheimer's research initiative; and, $105 million in funding over the next five years in research, education and public health efforts at the UW Medical School and Medical College of Wisconsin "to make progress in areas such as regenerative medicine, stem cell research, molecular medicine, neuroscience and cancer research."

Doyle also said he would propose legislation to allow UW faculty and staff "to more easily engage in commercial activities that utilize university research," and, would make millions of dollars in venture capital available to new biotech and health science businesses. The venture capital is available as the result of legislation signed earlier this year "to fuel the process of turning ideas into jobs by leveraging over $250 million of venture capital to help start-up companies grow."

The text of Doyle's announcement is available at The Wheeler Report website.

Okay, I understand that nobody's going to see this as a corporate giveaway: never mind that there's a whole lot of money in biotech and research, it's helping humanity so we don't see it the same as building a road to serve a new industrial park.

The libertarian in me is vomiting over this. The Star Trek fan in me is screaming "Invest! Invest! Invest! And while you're at it, send a manned ship to Mars!"

I find it interesting that none of the press releases touting this announcement - the Governor's, the UW System, the Alzheimer's Association, the Wisconsin Biotechnology & Medical Device Association - say anything about what kind of stem cell research they want to do. Two pro-life groups, Wisconsin Right to Life and the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, have publicly said they're all for this idea, as long as we don't include public funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Politically, I think this is a good move for Doyle. Any resistance from his Republican adversaries runs the risk of looking like obstructionism against both scientific research and economic development. The Legislature and Joint Committee on Finance will, likely, insert something into the budget bill that disallows public funding of embryonic stem cell research. The governor can just line it out, if he wants.

It's being speculated that this is a response (of sorts) to the California initiative to spend $3 billion on similar research.

If so, question: are these projects competing with one another, or do they actively cooperate along the way? I kinda hope it's more the former than the latter.