Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have promised that they will invest $3 billion over the next decade to fight diseases.
The initiative will be funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Institute, which was established by the couple after the birth of their daughter, aiming to "advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation." The Facebook man also pledged during this time to donate 99% of his Facebook shares to charity, equating to $45 billion.
The goal that the couple wants to set is to "cure, prevent, and manage" all known diseases in the next eight decades or so. "So if you even just assume that we'll be able to continue to make progress on that same trajectory, then that implies that by the end of this century we will have been able to solve most of these types of things," Zuckerberg said, in an interview with the Associated Press.
Chan brought even more good news, stating that another $600 million will be spent to establish a “bio hub” in San Francisco to support certain universities in the United States as they develop new methods to understand, manage, and treat diseases.
“We believe the future we all want for our children is possible,” she said. “We set a goal, to work to cure, prevent or manage all disease within our children’s lifetime. That doesn’t mean no one will ever get sick, but it does mean our children and their children will get sick a lot less."
Just recently, it was also revealed that Microsoft's Research facility is hoping to solve cancer within the next 10 years, making the disease a more manageable one, if it cannot be truly curable.
Source: Telegraph, Los Angeles Times
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