Biohub-a collaborative approach to research

The new Bay Area research collaboration, called the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, is the first scientific investment by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, created the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative after the birth of their daughter in 2015. The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub will bring together scientists and engineers from UC San Francisco, UC Berkeley and Stanford University to collaborate on cutting-edge, technologically driven biomedical research. It will be located at Mission Bay, with a satellite site at Stanford; the Biohub will provide basic researchers and clinical scientists with flexible laboratory space, the latest technological tools and funding for ambitious research projects.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s goal is to cure, prevent or manage all diseases by the end of the century by accelerating basic science research. The initiative seeks to support new ways of enabling scientists and engineers to work together to build new tools that will empower the whole scientific community and advance progress.

Main projects:
The Biohub will immediately initiate two potentially transformative research projects to be conducted over the next five years: the Cell Atlas and the Infectious Disease Initiative.

The Cell Atlas

The Cell Atlas is really a fundamental discovery-driven project. It aims to be able to define every cell type in the body, in all cell states and all cell transitions, and in a wide context of environments, including development, neurobiology, cancer, infectious disease, cardiovascular disease – you name it. It will leverage some of the newest genome-wide screening tools such as single-cell sequencing and genome-wide CRISPR tools. The Cell Atlas will also depict the internal machinery of cells in unprecedented detail, allowing scientists to search for the basic breakdowns that occur within cells when disease strikes. This is a large endeavor and it is expected that the Biohub’s efforts will spur global collaborations to complete the Cell Atlas.

The infectious diseases project

The infectious diseases project will have direct clinical implications, but also requires substantial amounts of basic science and fundamental discovery. It has four goals:

1. To detect and identify an infectious agent;                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         2. To respond to new emerging biothreats, such as Zika;                                                                                                                                                                                                                       3. To develop treatments using techniques like small-molecule drug discovery;                                                                                                                                                                           4. To develop vaccines and other methods for prevention.

The Biohub’s open-access model will allow researchers at its three member universities and elsewhere to use its technology and collaborate with scientists at the Biohub, which will provide support for both established and early-career scientists. All the research and output from the organization will be openly available to all doctors and researchers everywhere.

By: Dr. Vivek Rana