With an aim to leaving the world a better place for the next generation, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, have kick started an ambitious initiative, which aims at preventing or managing all diseases by the end of the century.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, as part of their Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, announced that they are investing $3 billion towards the prevention and cure of diseases. The initiative aims to cure all disease by the end of the century. Zuckerberg said “Together, we have a real shot at leaving the world a better place for our children than we found it.” In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg talked about how modern science has made incredible progress in the last hundred years and how the correct technology can make it even better. The goal is to “work together to cure, prevent or manage all disease within our children’s lifetime,” Priscilla Chan, who is a pediatrician, said during an event in San Francisco for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which was also live streamed on Facebook.
In the direction of their initiative, the couple made a bunch of important announcements. They have got Dr. Cori Bargmann, a world-renowned expert in neuroscience and genetics, on board who will be leading the initiative. The first project of the initiative will be a Biohub. Zuck and Chan are investing $600 million in Biohub, which is a new research hub to bring scientists and engineers together from Stanford, UCSF, Berkeley, and the engineering team they have built at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, in order to build some tools like telescope, the microscope and DNA sequencing. The invention of these tools are aimed at helping the researchers see problems in new ways.
At the event, Chan spoke through tears as she recalled experiences from her profession, narrating instances where she had to tell parents that their child had an incurable disease or could not be revived. She said, experiences made her even more determined to work with scientists and engineers to build new tools that can save lives by the end of the century. Zuckerberg further wrote that the progress of the modern science “has increased by 1/4 of a year per year since then, and if we only continue this trend, the average will reach 100 around the end of this century.” However, he pointed out that presently, there are only four kinds of diseases that are causing the majority of deaths, and that he feels optimistic that they can be tackled with the right technology.
American business magnate and philanthropist, Bill Gates, also stopped by at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announcement yesterday. Zuckerberg dedicated a post to thank Gates for his presence and congratulated him and his wife Melinda Gates on their ongoing work and investments in eradicating diseases like polio and malaria.
Last year, Zuck and Chan welcomed their baby girl Max with the stunning announcement to the world that they planned to give away most of their fortune through a new initiative to “advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation.” Zuck and Chan had pledged to give away 99 percent of their Facebook shares in their lifetime. So far, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has made investments in an African coding startup called Andela and Indian education startup named Byju to name a few.
Source: bgr.in
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