Section 265-A. Empire state stem cell board

1. The empire state stem cell
  board  ("board"),  comprised  of  a  funding  committee  and  an  ethics
  committee, both of which shall be chaired by the commissioner, is hereby
  created  within  the  department  for  the  purpose of administering the
  empire state stem cell trust fund ("fund"), created pursuant to  section
  ninety-nine-p  of  the state finance law. The board is hereby empowered,
  subject to annual appropriations and other funding  authorized  or  made
  available,  to  make  grants  to  basic, applied, translational or other
  research  and  development  activities  that  will  advance   scientific
  discoveries in fields related to stem cell biology.
    2.  No  grants  made  available  in  the fund from any source shall be
  directly  or  indirectly   utilized   for   research   involving   human
  reproductive cloning.
    3.  Notwithstanding  any  other provision of law, the board shall have
  the authority to adopt by laws to govern its proceedings  including  but
  not  limited  to rules respecting quorums and the number of votes needed
  to require the award of grants. No grants may be awarded  by  the  board
  prior  to the establishment of bylaws that must include merit based peer
  review application guidelines. Such  bylaws  must  be  approved  by  the
  funding committee.
    4.  Grants  may be made for one or more years, provided, however, that
  no grant shall be made for which the  annual  commitment  is  more  than
  fifteen  percent  of  the total funds available in any year. However, no
  single institution shall be awarded more than twenty-five percent of the
  total  amount  appropriated.  This  limitation   shall   be   considered
  separately  for  each  new  proposal  without aggregating any prior year
  approvals that may fund research activities. This requirement  shall  be
  determinative,  unless  two-thirds  of  the funding committee approves a
  higher limit for a particular grantee.
    5. The existence of the empire state stem cell  board  shall  continue
  until   there   are   no  longer  any  assets  or  money  available  for
  distribution.