Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg: Frontier AI + Virtual Biology To Solve All Diseases
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What is the story behind CZI’s 10‑year anniversary and its founding?
Hey everyone, welcome to the Laden Space Podcast. This is Halesio, founder of Kernel
Labs, and I'm joined by Swix, editor of Layden Space. Hello, we're so delighted to be in the Imaging Institute of CZI with literally C and Z. Uh welcome Mark and Priscilla.
Thanks for having us.
How did Bill Gates influence the decision to focus on basic science instead of translational work?
Thanks for getting nerdy.
Yeah, we're excited to do this. We do we so don't often get to see this side of you. And I so thank you for taking some time uh out to talk about this. And and it's like, you know, sort of the 10 year anniversary kind of of of CZI.
Why does CZI prioritize science over translation in its early years?
So I just wanted to introduce people if if you know people have not been caught up. Um one of the interesting things that we found out just from talking to your teams is there's an interesting difference between how you guys started CZI and the Gates Foundation. Uh and I I heard that Bill Gates is a mentor of yours. So maybe you could tell that story of of like deciding to start CZI and deciding to pursue basic science instead of translational work. Well
I mean, I think one of the core things for us with CZI was just getting started earlier. We got some advice that basically philanthropy and doing science, just like any other discipline, requires practice and you're not gonna be good at it overnight. So um so we should just kind of dig in and start doing a a few different iterations on it and see what we enjoy and where we think we can have an impact and go from there. So um yeah, I mean like you mentioned, I mean this is we're coming up on in November, the 10 year anniversary of when we started CZI. And you know, there's a lot of work that we've we're really proud of that we've been a part of, including, you know, work in education and supporting communities.
But You know, when we reflect on it, we feel like the work that we've done in science really has had the biggest impact and in a lot of ways is accelerating. And with um, especially with all the advances in AI that are coming, I think the ability to have an even bigger impact over the the coming decade is um It it just seems really clear like this is coming into focus. So, you know, for the next period, we really wanna make science the main focus of of what we're doing and and specifically the biohub organization that we're really proud of this model that we've helped pioneer that we can go into detail on is really gonna be like the main focus of our philanthropy and it's just something that we're very excited about.
Yeah, when we started ten years ago, we had this idea like, okay, I bring experience as a physician. Mark's an engineer and he builds things. And we have an an opportunity to give back resources to make an impact on this world.
How are the virtual cell models created from massive imaging data?
And we sort of just we tried a bunch of things. And the thing that in running a philanthropy, I'm incredibly envious of people who run companies, is that like you guys can have a dashboard And there's like financial results and people tell you if you're on the right track, on the wrong track, and there's clarity. But in philanthropy, there's so much you can do. And it takes a long time for you to get a sense of like what has momentum?
What role do the custom 12‑ft microscopes play in converting atoms to bits?
What are we doing that is actually bringing all of our both skills and resources to maximal impact? So over the past ten years, I would say we've been getting a sense of what is that thing that really allows us to have the impact and makes the most of what we bring to the table. And it It's really been around AI and biology where we're like, oh my gosh, this is it. And you know the ecosystem is big. And we really think our ability to bring great scientists, great AI researchers together between the wet lab and the compute, the ability to bring physicians and patients into the picture, that's a unique niche for us at the biohub. And um that's w you know, we need others to take the work to translation.
The Gates Foundation has a strong focus on translation and the field. And we have had a number of really awesome collaborations and continue to, where we really look at sort of the basic s fund fundamental research and being able to partner with someone who's thinking about the translation layer is incredible.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the story behind CZI’s 10‑year anniversary and its founding?
0:00–0:14
2
How did Bill Gates influence the decision to focus on basic science instead of translational work?
0:14–0:27
3
Why does CZI prioritize science over translation in its early years?
0:27–2:28
4
How are the virtual cell models created from massive imaging data?
2:28–2:51
5
What role do the custom 12‑ft microscopes play in converting atoms to bits?
2:51–4:30
6
How does the Frontier Lab concept merge AI with biology to accelerate discovery?
4:30–7:19
7
In what ways can AI‑driven models enable more ambitious precision‑medicine research?
7:19–10:54
8
What is the vision for a virtual immune system and how could it help cure all diseases?
10:54–53:19
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast
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