The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, created by mark zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan years ago to use technology in the development of science and medicine, has borne great fruit: the opening of a Biohub to find cures for different diseases such as cancer and heart disease.
As a report published on the website of infobae, a Biohub is a research center for scientific discoveries such as cures for pathologies. In this case, Zuck and his family invested $250 million for their space.
The Biohub is in Chicago and they work there with researchers from Northwestern, Chicago and Illinois Universities, who are trying to understand how human tissues work, using small sensors that they develop as a big target.
In an interview with Forbes quoted in the report, Zuckerberg explained: “If you look at the history of science, most of the big breakthroughs are preceded by new tools to look at things, not just in biology, but also with telescopes and supercolliders.”
The Meta CEO and his partner made the announcement via Instagram.
It is the second Biohub of the initiative
In San Francisco, United States, Mark Zuckerberh and Priscilla Chan opened the first Biohub and since 2021 they announced the creation of the second space, which becomes a reality in Chicago.
For the head of the headquarters in Chicago is Shana O. Kelley, professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering, who explains that having this space is a great alternative for the development of science and technology due to the opportunity to have no limits.
“It’s hard to explain how excited people are here. This is the opportunity to do science the way we’ve always wanted to do it, removing constraints and allowing creativity to flow,” Kelley said.
The expert spoke about the work they will do in the Biohub: “The idea is to take human tissue and embed thousands of sensors to make a completely new type of measurement.”
In this way they will observe how cells and tissues communicate and in this way they will understand “what happens when a tissue goes from being normal to being inflamed”.
According to data from the research to initiate this project, more than 50 percent of deaths are attributed to diseases with some type of inflammation, such as cancer and heart disease.