Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, are investing $250 million to create a biomedical research facility in Chicago that will bring together researchers from Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, officials announced Thursday.
The location of the facility — dubbed the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago — is yet to be determined.
Chicago beat out 58 other proposals from around the country to land funding for the facility.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced the state will kick in $25 million to support the project. The governor said it “will take medical research to a new level.”
Researchers will be tasked with developing new technologies for studying and measuring human biology that will use embedded sensors and probes to collect biological signals from human tissues with unprecedented resolution.
“For Chicago to be the winner really tells people this city has a vibrant cutting-edge life sciences sector,” said Milan Mrksich, vice president for research at Northwestern.
“This is huge. I’m a Chicago guy ... and what’s happening right now is very significant, very exciting,” said Mrksich, who grew up in southwest suburban Justice and went to Argo Community High School in Summit.
Mrksich expects a site for the facility will be announced in the next few weeks.
Chicago’s biohub will be the second such facility funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The first was built in San Francisco with the aim of creating a network of biohub facilities to bring together leading research institutions in different regions.
Chan and Zuckerberg are co-founders and co-CEOs of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
“The Chicago biohub is going to build miniaturized sensors to understand how cells work together and interact within tissues,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcing the investment. “We’re then going to apply these technologies to measure and understand the inflammation in living human tissues because that plays a big part in our overall health. About 50% of all deaths can be attributed to inflammation-related diseases, including cancer, heart disease and dementia, so making progress here is pretty critical.”
Chan added: “And I think one of the things that is really cool is that if we can instrument these tissues and figure out what things go wrong early, then we can do something about it early.”
Zuckerberg closed by saying: “And at the end of the day, the breakthroughs from these biohubs are going to bring scientists closer to this goal of eradicating all diseases.”
Shana O. Kelley, a professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering at Northwestern, will serve as the hub’s president.
“The hub’s ultimate goal is to unite the region’s best researchers to improve understanding of inflammation, potentially leading to new treatments for the inflammatory conditions that underlie disease,” according to a statement from Northwestern University.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was founded in 2015 to help solve some of society’s toughest challenges — from eradicating disease and improving education to addressing the needs of local communities.
