DeepMind, Meta and Isomorphic Labs Commit $300 Million to Biohub as Virtual Cell Push Expands
Updated
Updated · The Verge · Oct 7
DeepMind, Meta and Isomorphic Labs Commit $300 Million to Biohub as Virtual Cell Push Expands
3 articles · Updated · The Verge · Oct 7
Summary
$300 million from Google DeepMind, Meta and Isomorphic Labs will fund Biohub’s AI biology work, adding private backing to Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s nonprofit research effort.
The money sits within a broader $1.8 billion initiative to build datasets that let scientists ask, predict and answer biological questions digitally, with the goal of improving disease prevention and management.
Biohub, founded in 2016, is pursuing a “virtual cell” researchers can use to run simulations instead of some physical experiments, a model its science chief said could sharply speed discovery.
Federal support is also building: the US Department of Energy plans to invest more than $500 million over five years, while the NIH will contribute datasets, repositories and knowledge bases from earlier investments topping $500 million.