Zuckerberg’s research network

The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub took its first concrete steps toward knitting together the Bay Area research base with the announcement of the first class of its $50 million CZ Biohub Investigators program. The idea is to catapult academic drug discovery by backing risky ideas often left behind by granting bodies like NIH, and creating ties in a region where the balkanization of researchers can hamper efficient translation of novel concepts.

The non-profit Biohub launched in September with $600 million from the $3 billion Chan Zuckerberg Science Initiative and a remit to network academics from University of California San Francisco, University of California Berkeley and Stanford University...