Biohub started with an ambitious goal of curing, preventing, and managing all disease by the end of the century. A decade later, thanks to the convergence of frontier AI and biological data, that goal may have been too conservative. In this episode, Elad Gil and Sarah Guo sit down with Biohub co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, alongside Biohub Head of Science Alex Rives. Together, they discuss Biohub’s $500 million virtual biology initiative, which integrates frontier AI with wet-lab work to build predictive world models of cells, proteins, and systems. They also talk about their newly announced open-source engine for digital protein and antibody design, ESMFold2; why Biohub is a nonprofit rather than a venture-backed startup; and how hierarchical simulations will soon allow doctors to treat patients at an individual, mechanistic level. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Biohub | @finkd | @alexrives | @ChanZuckerberg Chapters: 00:00 – Cold Open 01:02 - Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, and Alex Rives Introduction 01:26 – Why Biohub and Their Mission 08:27 – Integrating Frontier AI and Frontier Biology 09:45 – Micro to Macro Biological Modeling 14:22 – Mechanistic Interpretiability 16:58 – Why Biohub is a Non-Profit 21:41 – Understanding How Biology Works 24:23 – Timeline for Curing All Diseases 26:25 – Translating Research to Patient Impact 28:04 – Launch of ESMFold2 32:13 – Tackling Off-Target Effects and Edge Cases 38:39 – Putting the Tech in Individual Hands 41:06 – Talent at Biohub 44:25 – What’s Next After ESMFold2 46:10 – Connecting ESMFold2 to Agentic Systems 46:51 – The Virtual Cell 49:33 – Defining Success for Biohub 51:52 – Biohub Strategy Update 56:20 – Conclusion

Biohub: The Future of Biology is Open-Source with Co-Founders Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, and Head of Science Alex Rives

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

## Transcript

[SPEAKER_A] We just want to give tools to the whole scientific community.

[SPEAKER_B] We want to understand how biology works. I want to understand the genetics of this person. I want to understand the risks they have to different illnesses. My goal is to be able to treat the individual as an individual, understand the mechanisms, and be able to intervene.

[SPEAKER_A] We'll have a bigger impact by getting this in more scientists' hands quicker by doing it as open-source projects instead. It's not just like there's some factory somewhere that you can pay to produce the data. You actually need to invent new novel scientific approaches. The theory isn't that we're going to cure the diseases, we're not. It's that we want to help accelerate the pace of progress for the whole scientific field.

[SPEAKER_C] 01:02 – We folded over 1.1 billion proteins and predicted their structures, and we didn't design a model for antibodies. We didn't design a model to be able to bind one particular target. We just designed a model that could understand proteins.

[SPEAKER_B] 09:08 – If we could design a protein to actually change the physiology, then we can actually cure someone.

[SPEAKER_D] Today on No Priors, we're joined by Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, and Alex Rives. We'll be talking about Biohub and all their various efforts to now start applying AI at scale to do world models of cells and different levels of interactions across biology.

[SPEAKER_E] Mark, Priscilla, thank you for doing this.

[SPEAKER_A] Yeah, thanks for having us. It was fun.

[SPEAKER_E] Alex, congratulations on new missions.

[SPEAKER_C] Thank you.

[SPEAKER_E] You guys made Biohub your primary philanthropic effort and then committed $500 million to this virtual biology initiative. Can you tell us a little bit about why do that, and how did you go from "we should fund this" to "this is who we are"?

[SPEAKER_B] So Biohub in its current form, we're super excited about. We feel like it's a really good fit for who we are and what we bring to the table and what we can achieve together. But this work started 10 years ago when we were thinking about how can we give back? And Mark wanted to build an organization that could cure, prevent, and manage all disease by the end of the century. And we had a series of hilarious meetings with scientists that, like, famous Nobel Prize-winning scientists were just laughing at us.

[SPEAKER_E] Was that your starting line? We're just gonna cure all disease?

[SPEAKER_A] No, no. And to be clear, we don't think that we're gonna be the ones curing the diseases. Our goal was always to build tools that could accelerate the whole scientific field, so that way the scientific field collectively could cure all the diseases. But still, I think people thought that by the end of the century was a stretch. Now I think it's, like, too conservative.

[SPEAKER_B] And...

Biohub: The Future of Biology is Open-Source with Co-Founders Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, and Head of Science Alex Rives

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Biohub: The Future of Biology is Open-Source with Co-Founders Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, and Head of Science Alex Rives

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.