Latest news with #ChanZuckerbergInitiative
Forbes
a day ago
- Health
- Forbes
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Introduces New GREmLN Model For Genetics
3D illustration of a DNA molecule with sparkling effects symbolizing complexity and genetic ... More diversity. Futuristic concept of genomics, precision medicine, and computational life sciences. If you've been paying attention to modern research and AI, you know that genetics is a major application of this technology to our lives. Alphafold, for which its founders received a Nobel prize in science, is a major example, but it's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what AI is doing in healthcare, and in genetics in particular. This month we have a new announcement from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative backed by Mark Zuckerberg and Melissa Chan that contemplates a brand new system called GREmLN (Gene Regulatory Embedding-based Large Neural model) for identifying cellular behavior. It may help with cancer research and work on other diseases. Part of the project involves an imaging technique, and assistance in developing software for scientists. There's also what CZ calls a 'single cell data set' of 1 billion cells, developed with 10X Genomics and Ultima Genomics. From reading documentation, it sounds like what this means is that teams assembled data on no less than a billion cells, in order to build a collective model of what an average cell would look like and how it would function. The new model, scientists suggest, can help to characterize genetic drivers of disease, and find new ways to restore diseased cells to health. Four Major Goals and Challenges Amongst the announcement of this ground-breaking resource, spokespersons at CZ identify four broader objectives scientists are reaching for: One involves building an AI-based virtual cell model – which GREmLN is presumably instrumental in. Another is 'developing novel imaging technology to map, measure and model complex systems,' which sounds like a similar type of exercise. Reportedly, the teams also hope to figure out how to directly sense inflammation in the body, and to harness the human immune system for various kinds of immunotherapy. Parsing these objectives further, you can see how the new GREmLN model will drive research on what the CZ Institute calls 'molecular logic' or the study of how parts of a cell interact or work together. What are Biohubs? A press release from Chan Zuckerberg also mentions the creation of Biohubs as laboratories fueling collaborative development, or, in the words of spokespersons, 'cross-disciplinary research institutions.' ChatGPT provides a definition of a Biohub, and points out that the Chan Zuckerberg Biohubs are not the same as a series of Biohubs developed by the World Health Organization. 'Biohubs are collaborative research centers designed to accelerate breakthroughs in biomedical science by fostering interdisciplinary cooperation, sharing resources, and facilitating innovation,' the model notes. 'Typically established through partnerships between universities, research institutions, healthcare providers, government agencies, and industry leaders, Biohubs aim to address complex biological and medical challenges by combining expertise across biology, medicine, engineering, computing, and data science. … Prominent examples include the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, which unites Stanford, UCSF, and UC Berkeley researchers to tackle infectious diseases and advance biomedical knowledge through open science.' Of the WHO Biohubs: 'A totally separate WHO initiative aimed at sharing biological materials (like virus samples with pandemic potential) among member states… So, while (CZ Biohubs and WHO Biohubs) share the 'Biohub' name, their missions, governance, and affiliations are entirely distinct.' The concept, however, is the same – scientists are banding together to do more innovative work on cell structure, for example, in nucleus and mitochondria DNA. A little research shows some of the distinctions between different types of DNA present in a cell. A lot of the DNA is isolated in the nucleus of the cell, but there's also mitochondria, less attached to that central cluster. Literature Weighs In Fans of Madeleine L'Engle's youth fiction in the 1980s will note that her work explored the idea of subcellular entities and their impact on macroscopic systems. Just for fun. I ask ChatGPT about L'Engle's impact on modern cellular and genomic research. 'Madeleine L'Engle's work didn't explicitly prefigure specific contemporary research into genetics or mitochondria, but her writing, particularly A Wrinkle in Time (1962), A Wind in the Door (1973), and the rest of her Time Quintet, did anticipate broad scientific and philosophical themes related to cellular biology, mitochondrial function, interconnectedness, and universal harmony,' the model said. 'In A Wind in the Door, for instance, L'Engle explores the concept of 'farandolae,' fictional microscopic entities within mitochondria, whose harmony or disharmony directly affects the health of living organisms and even the universe. Her vision captured a holistic view of biology, recognizing mitochondria as fundamental life engines, long before mainstream science widely emphasized mitochondria's central role in health, aging, and diseases.' How many readers remember the farandolae, which L'Engle characterized in promoting a kind of social symbiosis that was a more prominent idea in a less data-driven age? 'The young farandolae cannot fill an adult role, so they maintain a parasitic existence on the adult farae,' writes a poster on Literature Stack Exchange, where human readers get together to ruminate on different aspects of a text. 'In fact, so long as they are under the influence of the Echthroi, they revel in their parasitism. It is all taking and no giving…' In any case, ChatGPT provides this summary: 'Though not predictive in a literal scientific sense, L'Engle's imaginative storytelling prefigured ideas in modern genetics and mitochondrial research—particularly notions of cellular symbiosis, bioenergetics, systemic interconnectedness, and the vital relationship between microscopic structures and macrocosmic health.' Driving Further Change It's easy to see how these partnerships will allow scientists to work more proactively on disease solutions. I thought this news was worth covering as we move through a banner year for artificial intelligence in healthcare. We are finding use cases everywhere, from diagnosis, to scheduling, to the kinds of research that support these clinical solutions. That's a feather in AI's cap. However, we just might still have a place for the philosophical, sometimes fictional portrayal of such systems, as in L'Engle's work that leans more into the speculative than the technical approach. What do you think?
Business Insider
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Priscilla Chan's recruiting pitch? We can't pay as well as tech companies, but we've got GPUs
Compute power is a big draw for top talent, but not just in the world of AI. Priscilla Chan, Mark Zuckerberg's wife and the cofounder of the couple's philanthropic organization, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, spoke about the appeal of massive GPU clusters for biology researchers during a recent episode of Ashlee Vance's "Core Memory" podcast. "The other thing researchers really care about is access to GPUs," she said. "You're not going to make the most of someone if you don't actually have the GPUs for them to work from." Chan said, "We have that at CZI," adding that the organization has roughly 1,000 GPUs in its cluster, with plans to keep growing. In short, Chan said the pitch is: "Come work with us because we're going to have the computing power to support the research that you want to do." Another important factor is compensation, which she said is "obviously important," though she added that "we cannot compete with tech companies on this." CZI has in recent years narrowed its mission to focus on its "next phase" with a "bolder, clearer identity as a science-first philanthropy." The change marks a strategic shift, as the organization previously also supported education and other causes. "While CZI remains committed to our work in education and our local communities, we recognize that science is where our biggest investments and bets have been and will be made moving forward," Chan, a pediatrician by training, wrote in a memo to staff last year. Zuckerberg made a similar point about the importance of GPUs in recruiting on a recent episode of The Information's TITV show. Meta is spending billions to build an AI division it calls Superintelligence Labs. "Historically, when I was recruiting people to different parts of the company, people are like, 'Okay, what's my scope going to be?'" the Meta CEO said. "Here, people say, 'I want the fewest number of people reporting to me and the most GPUs.'" Meta, of course, has significantly more GPUs than CZI. Zuckerberg has said the company will have 1.3 million GPUs for AI by the end of 2025. "Having basically the most compute per researcher is definitely a strategic advantage, not just for doing the work but for attracting the best people," he said.
Time Magazine
08-07-2025
- Health
- Time Magazine
The $20 Million Bet on CRISPR to Cure Rare Childhood Diseases
Rare genetic diseases are challenging for patients and their families—made all the more overwhelming because symptoms tend to appear soon after birth. To date, there haven't been many reliable treatment options for these babies. The few that do exist involve invasive and risky procedures that don't often have a high rate of success. But there is a new source of hope for many of these families: the Center for Pediatric CRISPR Cures at the University of California San Francisco. The center—plans for which were announced July 8—is a collaboration between Jennifer Doudna, director of the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California, Berkeley who also earned the Nobel Prize for her work in co-discovering the gene-editing technique CRISPR, and Dr. Priscilla Chan, co-CEO and co-founder of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Supported by $20 million from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the center focuses on treating rare genetic diseases in children, starting with a group of eight kids who will enroll in a clinical trial to access a CRISPR therapy designed specifically for them. Doctors and researchers, including Chan and Doudna, believe that CRISPR can be used to change and correct a range of genetic mutations and scaled up to help more patients. And the medical teams plan to start enrolling patients immediately. "We want to ensure that CRISPR-based therapies become widely available, especially for rare diseases that likely won't be the target for pharmaceutical companies," Doudna tells TIME. Read More: The 4 Words That Drive Your Doctor Up the Wall The partnership was inspired by the recent success in treating KJ Muldoon, the first baby to receive a customized CRISPR treatment. KJ was born at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia with a rare genetic disease that prevents him from breaking down proteins properly. The therapy, called base-editing, replaced a faulty letter in KJ's DNA with the correct one that now lets him eat some protein. KJ's treatment represents the next phase of CRISPR-based therapies. While CRISPR treatments have been approved by the FDA to treat sickle cell disease and certain types of beta thalassemia, those therapies involve removing cells from patients, editing them with CRISPR to correct the genetic defect, and then infusing those cells back to the patients. In KJ's case, the CRISPR editing occurred in his own body, via three injections of a therapy developed just for him. That's the same model that the new center will use. 'With that story, there was a lot of momentum within our teams about whether we could do that again, and how we could learn from this to create a pipeline to reduce cost and make this therapy much more widely available,' Doudna says. Doudna thought of Chan, whose initiative has the mission of curing, preventing, or treating all diseases by the end of the century. It was an ideal match, since Chan had trained as a pediatrician at the University of California San Francisco and spent eight years treating children with rare genetic diseases after finishing medical school. 'When Jennifer called me, I thought, 'This is perfect,'' Chan tells TIME. She recalls encountering families whose babies were affected by diseases so rare that there was often little, if any, information about them. 'I have seared in my mind the image of a parent handing me a PDF that they carried around to explain to each resident that this is what we have, and this is all that we know about it. I carry that around daily.' The experience inspired her to create the Rare As One program at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a network of patients, researchers, and scientists from different disciplines that highlights the need for basic research needed to better understand these conditions in order to develop more effective treatments for them. Read More: The Surprising Reason Rural Hospitals Are Closing CRISPR, with its ability to target specific genetic mutations, holds the most promise for changing the course of such diseases. But time is of the essence. In KJ's case, the entire process of identifying his mutation, developing the treatment, testing it, and receiving FDA clearance took nine months. KJ was just six months old when he received his first CRISPR treatment. Acting that quickly is critical for conditions like these, since once cells or organs are damaged by disease-causing mutations, they can't always be rescued. The idea is to intervene with a CRISPR therapy to minimize the effects that the mutations could have. Currently, about 6,000 rare diseases affect 300 million people worldwide, and 72% of them are linked to genetic aberrations. A similar proportion primarily affect children. The new center will focus on identifying disease-causing mutations that can easily be targeted—such as in the liver, as in KJ's case. 'Jennifer and her team, and the team at UCSF, will be very careful in choosing mutations that are amenable to this treatment,' says Chan. 'Not all mutations will work well with this version of there will be a delicate balance in choosing patients who stand to benefit the most in this situation.' Patients will join a clinical trial to receive the treatment, and the research team will study them to learn from their experiences and continue to improve the treatment and the process. Read More: Why It's So Hard to Have Your Fertility Tested In the first cases that the center will try to treat, the FDA will consider each treatment on its own and decide whether to approve the customized therapy for that particular patient. But, says Doudna, 'as we continue to get more information on the safety and potential risks of CRISPR for different indications, what is emerging is the potential to designate CRISPR as a platform technology.' That means that if regulators approve the framework of the CRISPR gene-editing process, doctors would not need to conduct animal tests for each new CRISPR therapy designed for a patient. The only thing that would change would be the guide RNA, Doudna says, which carries the genetic instructions for finding the specific mutation that needs to be addressed. 'Even there, most of the guide RNA stays the same, and it's just the piece at the end providing the molecular zip code that changes.' Key to making that happen will be advances in other scientific areas, including using AI to predict how changing specific genes will affect a cell's function and what potential health outcomes a CRISPR-based treatment might have. That work is ongoing separately at places like Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and elsewhere, says Chan. Eventually, says Doudna, 'we hope as the process moves forward, it will be possible to both predict clinical outcomes of CRISPR therapies accurately and ensure that by changing just a little part of the guide RNA, everything else will remain the same, so you don't have to do full-blown animal testing for every single iteration of CRISPR. If that becomes possible, then it will make CRISPR a lot cheaper and a lot faster to test these kinds of therapies.' That would make it available for many more patients as well.
Hindustan Times
30-06-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Mark Zuckerberg announces the passing of his dog, Beast: 'Enjoy heaven, little guy'
Jun 30, 2025 01:05 PM IST Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms, on Monday announced the passing of his furry friend 'Beast' on a Facebook post. Mark Zuckerberg's pet dog named Beast was a fluffy white Puli ,which is a type of Hungarian Sheepdog andwas much loved by Zuckerberg. Taking to social media, Mark Zuckerberg announced the news by posting a picture of his pet along with the caption 'Enjoy heaven, little guy.' (Mark Zuckerberg/X) Beast also has his own Facebook account with 2.3 million followers. Listed as a 'public figure', beast is well liked by his followers who regularly liked and commented on his posts. In the post Zuckerberg did not mention the cause of death. Taking to social media, Mark Zuckerberg announced the news by posting a picture of his pet along with the caption 'Enjoy heaven, little guy.' The post received 597K reactions and 100.6K comments within 7 hours of the post, with many expressing grief and sadness. Mark Zuckerberg used to regularly update witty status messages for Beast, such as 'I just took a dump and had Mark Zuckerberg pick it up. It was glorious" or 'My new bone is almost as big as I am.' On the Facebook account of Beast there are a bunch of photos where Zuckerberg and his girlfriend Priscilla Chan are seen cuddling their pet. His Facebook bio say 'I am a Puli, which is a type of Hungarian Sheepdog. I live in Palo Alto with Mark and Cilla.' Beast's Facebook account often featured pictures of him with dreadlocks for fur chilling with his Priscilla or Zuckerberg's kids or even taking a bath. Mark Zuckerberg is an American businessman who co-founded the social media service Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms, of which he is the chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder. Zuckerberg has used his funds to organize multiple large donations, including the establishment of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan share three daughters: Maxima, August and Aurelia.
The Independent
28-06-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Mark Zuckerberg's charity backing away from DEI and political spending after Trump criticisms and staff tensions: report
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the multi-billion-dollar philanthropy led by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan, is reportedly moving away from political spending, following criticism from Republicans and internal tensions with liberal staff members. The initiative, founded in 2015, always invested in a combination of social and scientific causes, but has recently rebranded as 'science-first,' and has ended internal diversity programs, housing initiatives, and diversity-focused funding for scientists. This spring, a school for low-income students that Chan founded also closed. The shift, which has also included an overall slowdown in spending, with $336 million in grants, less than half the group's average, came after a series of bruising encounters with politics, The New York Times reports. Chan and Zuckerberg were reportedly frustrated after getting criticism from Trump and his allies for efforts like donating $400 million to nonpartisan election infrastructure in the 2020 race, an effort MAGA derided as 'Zuckerberg bucks.' Trump, for his part, threatened the Meta boss with 'life in prison' during the 2024 campaign if he intervened in the election. Political fatigue reportedly began even earlier, according to the Times, with Zuckerberg growing frustrated with criticisms from liberal staff members at the philanthropy in the wake of the 2020 racial justice protests. The Independent has contacted the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative for comment. The organization has explained the changes as a combination of new strategy and a shifting political landscape. In a June letter, Chan, a pediatrician, emphasized the group's long-running commitment to curing disease, a cause she became attached to as a doctor in San Francisco. 'It was there that I saw the limits of medicine and science up close, working with children with rare diseases,' she wrote in a June blog post. 'For those families, expanding the limits of what we know — advancing basic science research — is their only hope for a better life for their child. In a February post, the initiative explained its decision to cut its DEI teams as a response to the ' shifting regulatory and legal landscape.' In recent years, the Supreme Court has struck down race-based affirmative action in higher education admissions, and the Trump administration has sought to end DEI in both the public and private sector. At the same time, as the Republican has returned to power, Meta has repositioned itself with moves seen by some as an attempt to remain in the administration's good graces, including ending diversity programs, eliminating fact-checkers, putting Trump ally Dana White on the Meta board, and attending the president's inauguration earlier this year. Shortly after Trump was elected, Zuckerberg was spotted at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, where senior White House official Stephen Miller said the tech billionaire had 'been very clear about his desire to be a supporter of and a participant in this change that we're seeing all around America, all around the world, with this reform movement that Donald Trump is leading.'
