Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan on Curing Human Disease + The Future of Health Tech

This week we've distilled Huberman's episode with Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan.

 They discuss the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), a philanthropic effort to advance science and cure human disease by focusing on the cell as a basis for understanding disease.

All takeaways and protocols are databased & searchable on Human3 Wiki.

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI)

Overview

• Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan are co-founders of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI)

• CZI’s goal is to cure all human diseases

• Provides funding and a novel framework for cell function discovery

• Uses AI to discover new pathways and cures for diseases

ApproachFund scientists

• Fund scientists

• Build software tools for scientists

• Conduct science through Biohub institutes

• CZI’s mission is not to cure all diseases themselves, but to give the scientific community the tools to accelerate the pace of science

• CZI focuses on understanding cells as the basis for understanding disease

• Need to understand normal disease processes and what constitutes a healthy cell versus a diseased cell

Biological Benefits of Music Understanding Disease 

Studies have shown that listening to favorite music for 10-30 minutes a day increases heart rate variability not just during the listening period, but also around the clock, even during sleep

• This increase in heart rate variability is beneficial for mental and physical health

• Listening to music subconsciously changes our patterns of breathing, which in turn changes our heart rate and increases heart rate variability

Listening to music for ten to 15 minutes prior to doing cognitive work can be one of the best ways to get motivated to engage in that work

Binaural beats: different frequencies of beats presented to one or the other ear

• Some studies show that listening to 40 Hz binaural beats can enhance concentration and focus

• Other studies show that other frequencies of binaural beats might be detrimental to concentration and cognitive performance 

Effect of Music on Cognitive Tasks

• Controlled studies show that people perform best on cognitive tasks in complete silence

• Second best condition is instrumental music in the background

• Performance decreases when listening to music with lyrics

• Performance is worst when listening to favorite music while doing cognitive work

• Listening to music with lyrics competes with the comprehension of the narrative, impeding learning

• Listening to music in breaks between learning can heighten cognition, focus, and ability to learn

Listening to music in between bouts of exertion can enhance performance

• Particularly with familiar, motivational music

Understanding Disease

CZI's Role in Understanding Disease

• CZI funds science and incentivizes new points of view, collaboration, and open science.

• CZI builds software and hardware tools that are durable and scalable.

• CZI also owns institutes that work on grand challenges in disease understanding.

• The goal is to understand how cells interpret DNA instructions when they are healthy and when they are sick.

• This process generates a vast amount of data, which is where AI can help 

AI's Role in Understanding Disease

• AI can potentially identify connections and patterns that humans might not be able to discern

• AI can help analyze the vast amount of data generated in the process of understanding cells and disease.

• The goal is to formulate a virtual cell, a cell that’s completely built off of the data sets of what we know about the human body.

• This virtual cell can help us learn faster and try new things to advance science and medicine. 

Using Tech to Discover Cell Types

Not all cell types are known yet

• Discovery of new cell types can change our understanding of diseases

• Example: Cystic fibrosis was understood differently after the discovery of a new cell type affected by the CF mutation

Cell by Gene

• CZI has built a tool called Cell by Gene that provides a heat map of cell types expressing a particular gene

• Large data sets allow scientists to understand where mutations are expressed and what types of cell types they’re expressed in

• This tool can generate hypotheses about the relationship between a gene and different organs

• It can also help predict potential side effects of drugs targeting a specific gene 

Collaboration with Cell by Gene

• Cell by Gene can facilitate collaboration between scientists working on different organs, breaking down silos in scientific research

• The tool also provides relevant papers to the gene of interest, empowering graduate students and postdocs

CZI is building one of the largest nonprofit life sciences AI clusters

• The goal is to train a model with all the human cell atlas data to imagine all types of cells and their states in health and disease

New Funding Model for Science

CZI’s funding model is different from traditional science funding models like NIH

• CZI funds longer-term, bigger projects that require significant funding and world-class engineering teams

• These projects aim to build tools over 5-10-15 year periods

CZI is not involved in the implementation of new therapeutics, but works within an ecosystem

• There are groups, startups, and companies that effectively translate findings into therapeutics

• CZI’s work with rare disease groups is an exception, where patient advocates create rare disease organizations and partner with researchers and drug developers

• Biotech companies will explore the targets identified by CZI and test and implement them

• CZI, as a philanthropy, wants to enable the work done to be turned into companies and therapeutics, but will not pursue this directly 

Biohubs

The CZI has created biohubs in different locations, each with a unique focus

• Teams at the biohub are independent of the universities, but can partner with universities for contributions

• Biohubs require collaboration between at least three institutions

  • The Chicago biohub is a collaboration between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Chicago, and Northwestern University

• The Chicago biohub is studying cells in tissue, starting with skin

  • They have engineered skin tissue and embedded it with super thin sensors to read out data

  • They are studying how cells communicate and what happens when they become inflamed 

New York is engineering individual cells to identify changes in the human body

• Cells can navigate to tissues or embed themselves in tissues to act as a microscope within that tissue

• Immune cells can be engineered to examine certain things, such as the health of coronary arteries

• Cells can record information and report it back out

• The second part of the project is engineering cells to intervene  

  • Cells can be directed to clean up issues in a targeted way

  • Will study immune privileged areas, such as ovarian and pancreatic cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases

Meta’s Smart Glasses

Glasses look like normal Ray Bans but have advanced features

• Can respond to voice commands

• Can play music that only the wearer can hear

• Future Features in Development

  • Full augmented reality glasses, worn much of the day and interacted with frequently

  • Expected within a few years

  • AI assistant can answer any question throughout the day

  • AI assistant can see what you see and hear what you hear through the glasses

Privacy Questions with Recording with Smart Glasses

• Glasses have a privacy light that pulses when the camera sensor is active

  • This is more than what cameras on phones do

  • The goal is to make the glasses less discreet for recording than phones

Glasses could potentially solve the problem of myopia caused by viewing screens up close for too many hours per day

• Glasses could allow for digital work outdoors and measure time spent looking at things up close versus far away