Man on a mission

Stem-cell scientist Alan Trounson in San Francisco. Photo: Hugh Hamilton

INSTEAD of his former daily commute from Ashburton to Clayton, Australia's leading stem-cell scientist, Alan Trounson, walks to his office on San Francisco's waterfront, where he is head of the $3 billion California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the world's best-funded centre for embryonic research.

It is a bustling stretch of this beautiful bayside city, where trolley cars squeak as noisily as a Melbourne tram as they travel beneath the Bay Bridge and in summer baseball fans invade in their thousands, heading to the San Francisco Giants' home ballpark just across the road from Trounson's home. But the former Monash University professor doesn't hear much of the din; he's too focused on his work.

An ocean and decades away from his days in Melbourne as a pioneer of in vitro fertilisation, the 66-year-old scientist has learnt many things from working in a laboratory - chief among them is to simply stay focused.

Last month the world's five-millionth IVF baby was born; something that may not have occurred had Trounson and early IVF scientists been sidelined by their detractors. Among them was the religious right, which claimed they were attempting to play God.

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Research using embryonic stem cells - using embryos left over from IVF pregnancies - continues to attract similar controversy to the early IVF days, when Trounson would receive threatening calls late at night at his Melbourne home and be labelled a ''baby murderer''.

''Like with 5 million babies, it takes a good 25 years to embed into society that this science may be a good thing. It takes a long time for clinical trials - often it's seven to nine years before research gets to be put to use in general medicine,'' Trounson says.

Already there have been some promising results from the $1.8 billion in grant money Trounson has helped distribute among 450 research projects since he arrived in San Francisco in 2008.

And last month he secured another $150 million in grants to fund more stem-cell projects, including research into cancer, osteoporosis, Huntington's disease, spinal cord injury and motor neurone disease.

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Man on a mission