Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Lays Out Plan For Funding Disease Research

By Bio-IT World Staff

September 22, 2016 | Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and co-founder of Facebook, and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan are setting lofty goals in the world of science and medical research. In a recent statement made via Facebook Live, Chan announced that the couple’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is setting a new goal: “We’ll be investing in basic science research with the goal of curing disease.”

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was launched last year when Zuckerberg and Chan’s daughter, Max, was born. Chan, a pediatrician, said at the event, “We want to dramatically improve every life in Max’s generation, and make sure we don’t miss a single soul—we reach every individual.”

This is the first announcement the Initiative has made since its conception last year. In the time since the Initiative was founded, Chan and Zuckerberg have been meeting with scientists, doctors, and engineers in hopes of “curing, preventing, or managing all diseases in our children’s lifetime.” In her opening statement at the event, Chan said, “Mark and I believe this goal is possible... And after we talked with a lot of top scientists, we realized that they do too.”

One of the more interesting developments to come out of the Initiative’s live stream announcement was their launching of a Biohub, which will be the cooperative effort of world-class scientists and engineers in the pursuit of understanding and curing diseases. “Our aim is to bring together teams of innovative scientists and engineers to build transformational tools that unlock a new era of progress in science and health,” said Chan. The Biohub will be located in San Francisco.

A slideshow running during the announcement spelled out the goals of the Initiative’s Biohub: “The Biohub will focus on understanding underlying mechanisms of disease and developing new technologies which will lead to actionable diagnostics and effective therapies.” Biohub will be led by UCSF’s Joe DeRisi, a biochemist and biophysicist, and Stephen Quake, co-founder of Helicos and one of the earliest champions of quantified self.

“The Biohub is going to pursue large, interdisciplinary problems, problems which can’t be solved in conventional academic environments and cannot be supported in government funding models,” Quake stated in his presentation during the live stream.

The Initiative has vowed to commit $3 billion to the project, which should cover the first 10 years. This recent announcement is in accordance with the couple’s unwavering zeal of funding basic research.

The couple joins a long line of philanthropists who are dedicated to scientific research, such as Napster’s Sean Parker, who recently launched his own foundation in his commitment to funding the advancement of cancer immunotherapy research.

Writing in Science, David Baltimore, a Nobel laureate, president emeritus of and professor at the California Institute of Technology, member of the Board of Directors of the Broad Institute, and consultant for the Science Philanthropy Alliance, said gifts like those of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative play an important role in science.

“Big-profile gifts raise concerns for some, such as downplaying the need to increase federal research dollars for basic research,” Baltimore writes. “But these gifts are certainly broadcasting a common message—philanthropists recognize that a long view of progress is worth investing in.”