Join Dr. Priscilla Chan, co-founder and co-CEO of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) in conversation with Bloomberg Originals host, Emily Chang, as they explore how advances in generative AI are shaping the future of medicine. She will discuss CZI’s vision to build AI-powered “virtual cells” – digital models that can predict human cell behavior. To support this vision, CZI is building one of the largest AI computing clusters for nonprofit life science research to enable AI for biomedicine at scale. These advancements could lead to faster, more efficient medical breakthroughs, real-time health monitoring, and advanced treatments.

Building virtual cells comes with significant challenges. Scientists face knowledge gaps in understanding the complex workings of the 37 trillion cells in the human body, such as the exact components of cells and their interactions in health and disease. Cells are dynamic and function on multiple scales and processes, which require specialized models — like models trained on data from sequencing and images — that are difficult to integrate into a unified virtual cell. Developing accurate models also depends on gathering vast amounts of high-quality data across various modalities and species.

Priscilla will highlight the importance of cross-disciplinary collaboration and open science in overcoming these scientific and technological hurdles as we work toward creating AI systems capable of accurately simulating cellular functions. Ultimately, this progress will be key to reaching CZI’s mission to cure, prevent, or manage all diseases by the end of this century.