After investing millions of dollars in education and opening their own private K-12 school this year, pediatrician Priscilla Chan and her husband, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, announced Wednesday that they will invest $3 billion over the next decade to fight diseases. Neuroscientist and geneticist Cori Bargmann was named the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s president of science and will be in charge of bringing together scientists and engineers to develop medical breakthroughs. Chan also announced that the initiative will spend an additional $600 million to establish a “bio hub” in San Francisco to support researchers from Stanford University, UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco as they develop new tools to understand and treat diseases. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, California Lt. Gov. In December, Chan and Zuckerberg announced plans to donate 99% of their Facebook shares during their lifetimes to advance the mission of the Chan Zuckerberg Institute.

Source: Los Angeles Times September 21, 2016 19:30 UTC