Mark Zuckerberg Will Fund Scientists With ‘New Ideas’ To Fight Alzheimer’s Disease

Mark Zuckerberg Will Fund Scientists With ‘New Ideas’ To Fight Alzheimer’s Disease

In 2016, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, launched the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative with the modest goal of curing all diseases before the end of the century.

Image: Getty Images

Now, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is setting its sights on neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Over the next five years, it plans to hand out $US2.5 million ($3.2 million) in funding to early career scientists in the field of neurodegenerative disease research to jumpstart their work. In addition, it plans to give $US1 million ($1.3 million) over three years to scientists in different fields that want to apply their work to neurodegeneration.

Much of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s funding efforts have focused on basic research, which can often have trouble getting funding despite the critical importance of such research in solving problems of disease further down the road. The same goes for the new neurodegenerative research grants, for which the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is now accepting applications.

While a ton of research dollars and lab time have been poured into understanding neurodegenerative diseases, there are still a whole lot of basic things we don’t understand. When it comes to Alzheimer’s, for example, why it impacts certain regions of the brain more than others, the link between inflammation and the disease, or how exactly brain cells die. Basic research could help shed light on some of those questions – and maybe, one day, even lead to a cure.

An influx of funding is crucial in this field, as drug companies struggle to come up with effective treatments. In January, Pfizer announced it would end its investment into Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s after years of unsuccessful R&D efforts.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.