Chan Zuckerberg Initiative pledges $3 billion to fight diseaseFacebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan on Wednesday pledged more than $3 billion toward a plan to “cure, prevent or manage all disease within our children’s lifetime.”Pricilla Chan (R) and her husband Mark Zuckerberg announce the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to ‘cure, prevent or manage all disease’ by the end of the century during a news conference at UCSF Mission Bay in San Francisco, California, U.S. September 21, 2016. REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach (mb.com.ph)Speaking through tears at a San Francisco event to announce the initiative, Chan said she hoped to spare parents the pain she had seen while delivering difficult news as a pediatrician. The event was attended by business and political luminaries including former Microsoft Corp Chairman Bill Gates, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom. “Today, just four kinds of diseases cause the majority of deaths,” Zuckerberg added in a posting on his Facebook page, citing cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases and neurological diseases. The Biohub will be led by University of California, San Francisco professor Joseph DeRisi and Stanford University professor Stephen Quake, whose work includes small molecule screening and biological measurements.

Source: Manila Bulletin September 21, 2016 21:56 UTC