Mark Zuckerberg pledges $3bn to help scientists cure diseases

Sherry Gomez
02:01, Sep 23, 2016
Copyright 2015 All rights reserved. This material can't be published, transferred, copied or redistributed.
Copyright 2015 All rights reserved. This material can't be published, transferred, copied or redistributed.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have announced a new initiative called Chan-Zuckerberg Science on Thursday at a function held at the University of California, San Francisco's (UCSF) William J Rutter Center.

At present, 50 times more money is spent on treating sick people than curing the diseases which make people ill in the first place, Zuckerberg said.

The effort will be managed by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, to which Zuckerberg committed $45 billion of his personal fortune last fall.

With their year-old daughter Max, and their dog Beast, present during an interview at their Palo Alto home in California, the couple explained the motive for the project: "I've been with families where we've hit the limit of what's possible through medicine and science", Chan said.

".Today, most people die from four kinds of diseases: heart disease (10.8 million, 19.2%), cancer (8.2 million, 14.6%), infectious disease (8.5 million, 15.1%) and neurological disease like stroke (6.8 million, 12.1%)". Sean Parker, who was president of Facebook when the company was still a startup, earlier this year said he would give $US250 million to six USA cancer centres.

This research hub, which is based at San Francisco, will also bring Bay-area academic researchers together, Chan said, including those from UC San Francisco, Stanford University and UC Berkeley. Bargmann said the idea of bringing engineers and scientists together presents a "unique opportunity to take science in a new direction".

GB's Murray powers past Pella to level semi vs Argentina
The former US Open champion had hinted after partnering Mayer in doubles that he would not be playing on Sunday. The win secured his country a meeting with Croatia in November's final.

This is because major scientific breakthroughs in the past came on the back of the invention of new tools, according to Zuckerberg, "like the telescope, the microscope and DNA sequencing".

She recalled experiences of telling parents their child had an incurable disease or could not be revived, and said she hoped to spare parents the pain she had seen while delivering hard news in her role as a pediatrician.

Microsoft billionaire turned global philanthropist Bill Gates, who took part in Wednesday's opening event, praised Zuckerberg and Chan for taking on a "very bold, very ambitious" challenge.

Zuckerberg and Chan also hoped that their project would power a movement to fund more medical research around the world.

Following the birth of their daughter, Chan and Zuckerberg announced plans in an open letter to their infant daughter to launch CZI and donate 99% of their Facebook shares, then valued at $45bn, during their lifetimes towards advancing human potential and promoting equality. Their goal is to help scientists to "cure, prevent, or manage" all diseases within the lifetime of our children.

"This is a big goal and we thought this was really aggressive when we got started", Facebook Inc.co-founder Zuckerberg said.

Copyright 2015 All rights reserved. This material can't be published, transferred, copied or redistributed.


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