Reviewed by Lily Ramsey, LLMOct 18 2023 The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York brings together Columbia University, The Rockefeller University, and Yale University to create new technologies to characterize and bioengineer immune cells -; with the ultimate goal of creating disease-specific "cellular endoscopes" that can detect early stages of disease in cells, monitor cell changes, and resolve diseases before they become untreatable.
"The grand scientific question that these scientists are going to go after is around cellular engineering -; to engineer immune cells to detect specific diseases and then eventually encode their molecular make-up, so that scientists can use it as a diagnostic and eventually, they can engineer cells to go to a site of a disease and help treat it," said CZI co-founder and co-CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
New York City is a growing hub of life sciences research, with nine major research centers and over 100 total research centers, over 50 hospitals, a highly talented and diverse workforce, and industry-leading companies.
CZ Biohub NY will initially apply these novel, technology-driven approaches to hard-to-detect cancers such as ovarian and pancreatic cancers; neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's; as well as aging and autoimmunity. The next step is further training immune cells to make targeted repairs, such as promoting inflammation at a tumor site to activate a robust immune response.