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Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan: How AI Will Help Cure Disease

The a16z Show

Shownote

As part of our summer replay series, we're revisiting one of our favorite conversations from the past year. Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan join Ben Horowitz, Vineeta Agarwala, and Erik Torenberg to discuss the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's ambitious effort to help cure, prevent, and manage disease by the end of the century. Rather than funding individual breakthroughs, CZI is focused on building the tools and infrastructure that can accelerate scientific discovery across entire fields. The conversation explores Biohub, Cell Atlas, virtual cell models, open biological datasets, and the growing role of AI in helping researchers better understand human biology. They discuss why biology still lacks a "periodic table of elements," how AI could help scientists test hypotheses before running expensive experiments, and why pairing frontier biology with frontier AI may unlock a new era of medical discovery.   Resources: Follow Mark Zuckerberg on X: https://x.com/finkd [https://x.com/finkd] Follow Dr. Priscilla Chan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/priscillachan [https://www.instagram.com/priscillachan] Follow Ben Horowitz on X: https://x.com/bhorowitz [https://x.com/bhorowitz] Follow Vineeta Agarwala on X: https://x.com/vintweeta [https://x.com/vintweeta] Stay Updated: Find a16z on YouTube: YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@a16z] Find a16z on X [https://x.com/a16z] Find a16z on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z] Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX?si=3E8B3qT9TyiwAHJ7JnaKbg] Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711] Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg [https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg]   Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Highlights

In this episode, Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan join Ben Horowitz, Vineeta Agarwala, and Erik Torenberg to discuss the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's ambitious effort to help cure, prevent, and manage disease by the end of the century. Rather than funding individual breakthroughs, CZI is focused on building the tools and infrastructure that can accelerate scientific discovery across entire fields.
00:00
We need a periodic table for biology.
05:16
Curing disease by century's end
13:24
Most diseases should be treated as rare.
18:53
Virtual biology could enable riskier research by reducing the cost and time of wet lab work.
38:52
Patience with long time horizon, impatience in iterations.

Chapters

Building the 'Periodic Table' of Biology: CZI's Mission to Cure Disease by Century's End
00:00
From Skepticism to Breakthroughs: Combining Frontier Biology with AI to Create Virtual Cell Models
05:16
Precision Medicine for Everyone: How Biohubs and Cell Atlases Are Mapping Individual Biology
10:14
Testing Hypotheses in Silicon: How AI Can De-Risk Biological Research Before Wet-Lab Experiments
18:53
Uniting Teams and Tools: How CZI is Accelerating Biology and AI Research Through Philanthropy
27:48

Transcript

Mark Zuckerberg: This is a space that, I mean, if there's just going to be a huge amount of leverage with AI, it still seems like there could be a lot more effort in this space around building tools. And it's kind of this crazy thing that we're, you know, ...