Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan are one philanthropic couple.
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The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will bring together scientists and engineers with the goal of having them build tools that can help advance their goal.
The Facebook Chief Executive said the couple would be investing in a bioscience research centre with the aim to “cure, prevent or manage all disease within our children’s lifetime”.
A photograph of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a new version of its website on Thursday, september 22, 2011 that is based around the idea of a personal “timeline” rather than its standard profile pages.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, heart disease, infectious disease, cancer, and neurological diseases are the leading causes of death. “We can make progress on all of them with the right technology”.
The Facebook founder and his wife, who pledged to give away 99 per cent of their wealth to good causes following the birth of their daughter past year, said the money would be used to assist scientific work and build new research tools. This is a place that combines the efforts of researchers and engineers from UC-Berkeley, UCSF, and Stanford to specifically develop new tools for the treatment of diseases. “There won’t be any debates”, he said, about whether or not to fund quick-response efforts to emerging diseases.
“They both love science and they are both very committed to where it can take us”, Gates said.
The couple recently backed a startup that trains and outsources work to developers in Africa and a programme providing San Francisco Bay Area teachers with cash for school supplies.
The center will be run by Cori Bargmann, a noted neuroscientist.
“That doesn’t mean no one will ever get sick. but it means our children and their children should get sick a lot less”, she told the audience on Wednesday. Biohub will be led by UCSF’s Joe Derisi and Stanford Stephen Quake, known for the expertise in biophysics and bioengineering.
Calling their science initiative a bold and ambitious effort, Gates said that Zuckerberg brings his risk taking and entrepreneurial spirit while Chan contributes her experience as a pediatrician.
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The tools Zuckerberg wants to help create include machine learning – where computers study patterns and phenomena without being explicitly programmed to do so – artificial intelligence and microchips to monitor biological data.
