Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, M.D., have taken the next step in their philanthropic endeavors after announcing they will donate billions to help fight diseases. There, it will develop a “biohub” partnership between the University of California San Francisco, University of California Berkeley, and Stanford university.
Advertisement
Joseph DeRisi, a UCSF biochemist, and Stephen Quake, a Stanford professor of bioengineering, will run the facility.
The couple has spent the past two years meeting with scientists to plan the effort.
Be proactive – Use the “Flag as Inappropriate” link at the upper right corner of each comment to let us know of abusive posts. One example: a cell atlas that maps out all the different types of cells in the body, which could help researchers create various types of drugs.
Saying that “as a pediatrician I’ve worked with families at the most hard moments of their lives”, Chan pledged “we’ll be investing in basic science research with the goal of curing disease”.
The pair hopes their investment will cure, prevent or manage disease within their 10-month-old daughter’s lifetime.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative mission statement states: “We want every child to grow up in a better world”.
Both Zuckerberg and Chan emphasized that they don’t think they will be able to fully eliminate disease.
The Chan Zuckerberg initiative was set up past year with the goal of improving lives of all those born in their daughter Max’s generation.
The financial commitment is a part of their Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which seeks to advance human potential and promote equality.
They said the goal would require three areas of focus – bringing scientists and engineers together, more collaboration in the field of science and building tools, more advanced technology, growing the movement and more funding for other projects. The Facebook CEO said he plans to “sell or gift” $1 billion worth of Facebook stock to the initiative. “We’ll be investing in basic science research with the goal of curing disease”. So we have to be patient. So while many of us may not benefit from a cure, the group believes it’s possible our children and grandchildren will be less likely to get sick.
Advertisement
“It’s going to be years before the first tools get built, and years after that before they actually get used to cure diseases”, he said.
