Silicon Valley Girl Dr. Priscilla Chan: How AI Is Breaking the Rules of Biology | Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
Nov 7, 2025
Dr. Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician and co-founder of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, discusses revolutionary advancements in AI and medicine. She shares her transformative experiences in the clinic that led her to focus on disease prevention. Priscilla highlights the creation of virtual cell models that could personalize treatments and accelerate drug discovery. She envisions a future where diseases are tackled at their genetic roots and emphasizes the pivotal role of the immune system. Her optimism reveals that many diseases could see cures within our lifetime.
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Tooling Scientists Beats Solo Discovery
- Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's mission is to cure or prevent all disease and AI makes that timeline feel much sooner than previously believed.
- They focus on building tools that make every scientist faster, bolder, and more effective rather than solving problems alone.
LLMs Unlock Biological Data Value
- Large language models unlocked a new way to extract knowledge from vast biological datasets like cell-by-gene maps.
- The convergence of frontier AI and large single-cell datasets enabled a step change in what's possible for biology.
Clinic Moment That Changed Her Path
- Priscilla Chan describes shifting from clinical pediatrics to moving basic science forward after seeing patients with conditions we couldn't name or treat.
- That clinical experience convinced her that accelerating biology research would bring real hope to patients.