'It's like getting a Wayne Gretzky,' McMaster official says of
successfully wooing top scientist
By CAROLYN ABRAHAM
Tuesday, August 9, 2005 Page A3
MEDICAL REPORTER
A leading stem-cell scientist has turned down a multimillion-dollar
offer in the United States in favour of heading Canada's first
stem-cell research centre.
Mick Bhatia, a 35-year-old developmental biologist who specializes in
the controversial study of human embryonic stem cells, is to become
scientific director of a research centre now being built at McMaster
University in Hamilton.
That Dr. Bhatia could otherwise be house-hunting in sunny Sacramento,
Calif., makes the appointment a particular coup: The McMaster institute
represents the first successful effort to keep Canada's best stem-cell
researchers -- and there are very few of them -- from leaving the
country.
snip
The University of California at Davis, just 10 minutes outside of
Sacramento, courted Dr. Bhatia for nine months, offering him a base
yearly salary of more than $500,000 (U.S.) plus an annual research
budget of $2-million to become scientific director of its
5,760-square-meter human embryonic stem-cell institute.
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