Twelve miles north of downtown San Diego is "the Mesa"...a three mile stretch of North Torrey Pines Road, the home of some of the worlds's leading human health research institutes, including the University of California San Diego, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the Sanford Burnham Medical Discovery Institute, Scripps Research and the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology. 

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The Sanford Consortium was formed to marshall the intellectual resources of these five world leaders, bringing scientists from each institution together to develop and consuct joint research and training programs in stem cell research.