Facebook’s Zuckerberg and his wife commit $3B to end disease

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have a lofty new goal: to cure, manage or eradicate all disease by the end of this century. To this end, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, their philanthropic organization, is committing $3 billion over the next decade to help accelerate basic science research.

The donation includes $600 million toward a new research center at the University of California, San Francisco. It will run as a collaboration between UCSF, UC Berkeley and Stanford University. The science initiative will be headed by Cori Bargmann, a neuroscientist who studies the biology of the brain.

Zuckerberg and Chan, who have committed to donating 99 percent of their wealth, have spent the past two years meeting with scientists and experts to plan the endeavor.