Chan Zuckerberg project announces $50 million research program

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, left, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, rehearse for a speech in San Francisco in September. The couple’s $600 million scientific research initiative has named a team of 47 researchers and engineers to study the prevention and treatment of human disease.

he $600 million scientific research initiative announced last year by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, has named a team of 47 researchers and engineers to study the prevention and treatment of human disease.

The project, called Biohub, is a research center that will house engineers and scientists in varied disciplines from UCSF, UC Berkeley and Stanford University. It is part of a larger $3 billion philanthropic commitment from Zuckerberg and Chan aimed at improving treatments for disease.

The newly named scientists — whom Biohub calls “investigators” — include experts in cancer research, genetics, psychiatric disorders and other specialties. Each will receive a five-year appointment and up to $1.5 million in funding to conduct research in their field of expertise — making the Biohub investigator program a roughly $50 million project. The physical Biohub research center is scheduled to open by the end of February in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco.

“This is very focused on the Bay Area,” said Joe DeRisi, co-director of Biohub and professor of biochemistry and biophysics at UCSF. “It was meant to bring together people from the three powerhouse institutions to collaborate in bold and new ways.”

Earlier this week, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announced that it would donate $3.6 million to help alleviate the housing shortage in the Bay Area. Of the contribution, $3.1 million will go to Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto — a nonprofit legal aid group that represents tenants facing displacement — and $500,000 will go to UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation, which studies housing policy.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is the limited liability company into which Zuckerberg and Chan, a pediatrician, can transfer their Facebook shares. The for-profit entity has more flexibility to lobby, make political contributions and invest in companies than a charitable trust or foundation. Biohub is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit entity that operates separately from the initiative but is also funded by Chan and Zuckerberg.

In January, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announced that it will acquire Meta, a Canadian company that is developing artificial intelligence programs that help scientists analyze data. It also hired David Plouffe, President Barack Obama’s former campaign manager, who left an executive post at Uber to become the initiative’s president of policy and advocacy.