Google invests millions in Mark Zuckerberg's efforts to create a 'virtual cell'

Google DeepMind, Meta, and AI drug discovery startup Isomorphic Labs are jointly investing $300 million into Biohub, the nonprofit biomedical research organization founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, according to Reuters. The funding is part of a $1.8 billion initiative to create AI datasets intended to let researchers "ask, predict, and answer biological questions digitally" and find new ways to prevent and manage diseases.

Founded in 2016, Biohub aims to combat diseases by building a "virtual cell" that researchers can use to run simulations. The US Department of Energy will invest more than $500 million over the next five years, while the National Institutes of Health will contribute datasets, repositories, and knowledge bases from over $500 million in previous federal investment.

Alex Rives, Biohub's head of science, said an accurate predictive model of biology could dramatically accelerate scientific discovery by letting scientists perform experiments digitally, calling the creation of a virtual cell one of the most important challenges for the next era of science that will require coordinated data generation at national and international scale.

(Source：The Verge)