The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was first announced in December alongside the birth of the couple’s daughter Max.
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To begin with, it will invest $600 million in a project called Biohub, which is an independent research center located at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF).
CZI also named Dr Cori Bargmann of Rockefeller University to head its science-funding branch.
“Mark and I spent the past two years talking to scientists ranging form Novel Prize laureates to graduate students”, Chan said during an emotional talk at UCSF.
Eric Lander, a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he has had some 20 conversations with Zuckerberg and Chan over the past year about the initiative. The program aims to cure, prevent or manage all diseases within our children’s lifetimes and is one of a few corporate driven programs of this magnitude, working in this particular direction. “That doesn’t mean no one will ever get sick, but it does mean our children and their children will get sick a lot less”. “The telescope helped us understand astronomy and the universe, the microscope helped us understand cells and bacteria to help us develop treatments for infectious diseases, while DNA sequencing and editing helps us fight cancer and genetic disorders”. Zuckerberg, 32, said the initiative was to “make a better future for our children”.
Zuckerberg explained that the programme aims to eventually make all diseases treatable or at least easily manageable by the end of the 21st century.
Zuckerberg and Chan stressed that they believe that their goal can be accomplished – if not in their lifetime, then in their child’s lifetime.
The money will be distributed by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, an organization the pair founded in December a year ago with the aim of “advancing human potential and promoting equality”. “I can’t think of a better partnership to take it on”, Zuckerberg bringing his risk-taking entrepreneurial chops, Chan her medical bonafides. Over the next decade, they plan on donating $3 billion in an attempt to eliminate disease from the world by the end of the century.
Zuckerberg notes, “We spend about 50 times more treating people who are sick than we invest in research so you won’t get sick in the first place”, adding also that public support for this initiative is very important.
This is a long-term effort, Zuckerberg cautioned. The initiative expects to see engineers, chemists, biologists, computer scientists and more all participating.
BioHub scientists will seek to create a Cell Atlas that maps out the different types of cells in the body.
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He goes on to say, “We have to be patient”.
