Eighty-six Bay Area scientists will each receive $1 million to support their research from a foundation backed by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.
The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a biomedical research organization founded in 2016, announced its latest award recipients Wednesday. Each award winner will receive $200,000 a year for the next five years, starting on March 1.
The grants, which the organization awards every five years, are intended to support ground-breaking research and to promote collaboration among scientists toward developing ways to diagnose and treat diseases.
"We're delighted to announce a new cohort of scientists," the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub said on its website.
The organization grants awards to scientists from Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California San Francisco. Among this year's awardees are 33 Stanford, 32 from UCSF and 21 from UC-Berkeley.
"I am eager to see what advances this group of scholars will make through their collaborations," UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood said in a statement.
The foundation selected the award winners from among nearly 700 applicants. The awardees do research in a diverse range of disciplines, including physics, chemistry, engineering, statistics and public health.
The CZ Biohub is led by Steve Quake and Joe Derisi, who serve as its co-presidents. Quake is a professor of bioengineering and applied physics at Stanford, while Derisi is a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at UCSF.