Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg want a disease-free world by the time this century ends and they're about to spend $3 billion to make sure it happens.
At an event in San Francisco, Facebook's chief executive and his wife announced that they will spend $3 billion periodically over the next decade, hoping to aid scientists and engineers in curing, preventing and managing all diseases in a program called Chan Zuckerberg Science.
In late 2015 Zuckerberg vowed to donate 99 percent of his shares to charitable causes. Sure enough, Zuckerberg stuck to his his word — he and his wife put their Facebook shares in — and started the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), valued at $45 billion. The purpose of the initiative is to "advance human potential and promote equality in areas such as health, education, scientific research and energy."
"As a pediatrician I've worked with families at the most difficult moments of their lives," said Chan on stage, tearfully recalling a harrowing incident in which she had to inform parents that their child had an incurable disease. Her stint as a pediatrician brought on similar painful experiences, and collectively, they're a huge part of why she's determined to work with scientists to achieve a disease-free world by the end of the century.
"[We want to] make a better future for our children," Zuckerberg chipped in, taking the stage after his wife's remarks. In Dec. 2, 2015, Zuckerberg published a letter addressed to his daughter Maxima, expressing that she represents to him and his wife hope for the world, and hope for Max's generation to head for a future where children won't suffer from any kind of disease.
"When our daughter was born, we wrote a letter about the hope she gave us for the future. It's a hope I know so many of us feel — that we can make a better future for our children and generations to come," Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg presented the core health problems plaguing the world at present and how the program will address the said problems. It intends to tackle leading causes of death: heart disease, infectious disease, neurological disease and cancer. He said that no single breakthrough in medicine can extinguish these, but that investment in creating new tools and research will further let us understand how to move in the right direction to expedite the process of eliminating them altogether.
Additionally, he presented a three-part roadmap of the program. First on the list is to bring scientists and engineers together. Second is to build tools and technology. And third is to grow the movement to fund science.
Zuckerberg opined that the typical academic grant model is inefficient in coming up with breakthroughs. He wants to retool that model, opting instead to fund long-term initiatives, a change that can boost scientific discoveries.
Cori Bargmann later came out to explain how the $3 billion will be parsed across elements in the program to ensure the lifespan of the initiative. Bargmann is a neuroscientist from The Rockefeller University and the CZI's newly-appointed president of Science.
BioHub
As part of the investment, CZI is funding a $600 million to BioHub, a medical science research center which acts as a nexus, bringing in researchers from Stanford, Berkeley and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), with a common goal to undertake extensive scientific research in order to find new ways to treat diseases.
UCSF's Joe DeRisi and Stanford's Stephen Quake will lead the BioHub. DeRisi and Quake are professors who are biophysics and bioengineering experts. All output to be produced in the BioHub will be readily available to doctors and researchers.
"The Biohub will allow researchers at leading institutions to collaborate and accelerate the development of breakthrough scientific and medical advancements, applications and therapeutics," said Jennifer Doudna, a member of BioHub's Science Advisory Group and a UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology and chemistry.
DeRisi explained that BioHub will stockpile on researchers and equipment on-site to readily procure solutions should unexpected viruses or health hazards begin to plague the world. This way, more time is spent on actual and scientific remedies instead of stranding progress in an endless surfeit of political dialogue.
Focusing On Transformational Technologies
The program will also focus on finding "Transformational Technologies" that will center on conceptualizing new tools to find much better perspectives in treatment and prevention. Zuckerberg is confident that Artificial Intelligence is one of these so-called transformational technologies. He said that AI software can help with brain imaging to advance understanding of neurological diseases.
He added that machine learning can aid analysis of large databases concerning cancer genomes. He also introduced the idea of a chip that can identify and possibly diagnose any disease. Continuous bloodstream monitoring is also one of the ideas he has in mind that AI can pave the way to. If realized, this type of monitoring can immediately notice any potential health problems occurring within the body before it gets worse.
One of BioHub's first projects will be the creation of a cell atlas, which is a broad and extensive database that will contain every location of all the cells in the human body.
"It's amazing that no one really knows how many types of cells are in the human body," Quake said. If a cell atlas is indeed developed successfully, it could change and improve treatment of severe diseases such as cancer or diabetes.
Uniting Experts With Challenge Networks
Finally, the program will launch Challenge Networks, which is essentially a virtual counterpart to BioHub. The purpose is inherently similar in that both undertakings purposefully try to extract the best solutions to the world's very immediate health concerns. Challenge Networks will be composed of virtual institutes that will unite health professionals and experts globally to collaborate amongst one another in the event of a very urgent situation.
The Challenge Networks will act as a comprehensive communication channel between top doctors, engineers and field experts, allowing them to facilitate an exchange of research, ideas and studies — the goal is to understand causes of problematic diseases and further investigate. CZI is prepared to reward these professionals through incentive structures set up by the organization, enough reason for these people to commit to Challenge Networks as a legitimate career.
Before the event closed, a familiar face took to the stage to offer some last remarks. Bill Gates, who needs no introduction, gave his due praise for the CZI.
"It's a magical time to bring this group together to tackle these problems," Gates said. He added that the most fun out of his and his wife's philanthropic efforts are the people they meet who are optimistic that problems Chan and Zuckerberg presented can be solved. "They are inspiring a whole new generation of philanthropists to do great things."
