Zuckerberg, wife pledge $3 bn to banish disease

PanARMENIAN.Net - Mark Zuckerberg and his wife on Wednesday, September 21 pledged $3 billion over the next decade to help banish or manage all disease, pouring some of the Facebook founder's fortune into innovative research, AFP reports.

"This is a big goal," Zuckerberg said at a San Francisco event announcing the effort of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative established by the couple.

"But we spent the last few years speaking with experts who think it is possible, so we dug in."

Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, had their daughter Max late last year. Shortly after, they pledged to donate 99 percent of their Facebook holdings or some $45 billion to "advance human potential and promote equality."

At Wednesday's event, Zuckerberg said their goal is to cure all disease, or at least turn catastrophic illnesses from terminal to manageable or preventable within their daughter's lifetime.

While the funding effort is for the next decade, Zuckerberg and his wife said they hope to achieve their objective of by the end of this century.

Chan, fighting back tears at times, said that curing all disease within Max's lifetime will not mean children won't ever get sick, but it would happen less often and be less severe.