Evangelina Padilla-Vaccaro – a pink bow in her hair – was likely the first 6-year-old ever to address the leaders of California’s $3 billion stem cell research program.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Her mother said more: “Thank you for keeping my family complete.” Alysia Padilla-Vaccaro’s voice cracked, and tears flowed on that cool December morning at the meeting at an Oakland hotel.

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One of those watching the agency since its beginning is Hank Greely, director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford University. He said in an email, “CIRM has been spending money from Proposition 71 for about 10 years. Once initial hopes of finding low-hanging fruit disappeared, this kind of slog toward treatments became inevitable.

“The next few years should determine just how good California’s investment has been. It is encouraging to see CIRM supporting so many clinical trials; it will be much more exciting when – and I do expect ‘when’ and not ‘if’ – one of those trials leads to an approved treatment.”