Zuckerberg: can my $3bn clear the world of diseases
Discussion
Ayahuasca said:
Good on him.
Malaria would be a good place to start.
Bill & Melinda Gates fund has been working on that one. IIRC, the B&MGF started by picking solvable problems that could benefit from the scale that billions could bring, as opposed to trying to crack unsolvable problems. Though an old flatmate of mine said they donated to her Cancer lab so I'm not sure how true that is anymore.Malaria would be a good place to start.
Part of the project is to create a chip that can be embedded into the body which can monitor and look for diseases.
Based on what FB currently do with all the data they have on you, who they share it with, who they sell it to, would you be happy with them selling your health information to a pharmaceutical company so you get ad's for drugs before you even know you need them?!?!
The fact that MZ has to cover his camera and mic tells you how much he values his privacy but puts a different type of value on yours. If I didn't need Facebook for work, I'd be more than happy to leave it.
Based on what FB currently do with all the data they have on you, who they share it with, who they sell it to, would you be happy with them selling your health information to a pharmaceutical company so you get ad's for drugs before you even know you need them?!?!
The fact that MZ has to cover his camera and mic tells you how much he values his privacy but puts a different type of value on yours. If I didn't need Facebook for work, I'd be more than happy to leave it.
Ex Pres Jimmy Carter has only been at this since '86 and he's on the cusp of eradicating one. Out of a further one hundred only six infectious diseases have been identified as eradicable.
Source: Carter Centre
Source: Carter Centre
dandarez said:
Not read it, but surely he doesn't want everyone to live forever?
Becoming disease free for a lifetime doesn't prevent you dying ...eventually. Does it?
Life has a 100% mortality rate.Becoming disease free for a lifetime doesn't prevent you dying ...eventually. Does it?
If one thing doesn't get you another thing will.
For example rising life expectancy has meant your chance of developing cancer at some point in your life has increased from 1/3 to 1/2 (per cancer research)
If all cancer is treatable then other age degenerative conditions will become more prevalent.
Leaving aside Sci-fi solutions like reversing the ageing process all we are talking about is advancing medical technology extending life-spans by a few years.
Something to be welcomed IMO, as long as those extra years are healthy ones, overpopulation elsewhere in the world is an irrelevance.
Talksteer said:
Secondly "cure all disease" is just a target to simulate visionary research. Similar to Sweden's vision zero (no road deaths by 2020, set in 1997), they could have estimated how much they could reduce road accidents based on historical progress.
However no road deaths by 2020 is just the right side of impossible to capture the imagination. They won't reach it but by 2030 I expect Sweden will probably have negligible road deaths.
Yes. AKA an "outrageous ambition" to head towards. Like landing on the moon within a decade. Not an uncommon approach and can be successful.However no road deaths by 2020 is just the right side of impossible to capture the imagination. They won't reach it but by 2030 I expect Sweden will probably have negligible road deaths.
Kermit power said:
Plus from a cynical viewpoint, if you're a big pharma company, curing all diseases is your worst nightmare! There's far more profit - for a much longer period of time - in treating the symptoms and slowing the decline than in actually curing things.
Indeed. Find a cure for cancer, watch your back, there's 100 Billion a year riding on it......13m said:
steveT350C said:
Microsoft aiming to crack cancer code using artificial intelligence.....
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/20/microsoft-wants-...
They can't even fix their own software, so I'm not holding out much hope that they'll cure cancer.https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/20/microsoft-wants-...
judas said:
13m said:
steveT350C said:
Microsoft aiming to crack cancer code using artificial intelligence.....
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/20/microsoft-wants-...
They can't even fix their own software, so I'm not holding out much hope that they'll cure cancer.https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/20/microsoft-wants-...
BlackLabel said:
A few days ago we had this:
"Microsoft has vowed to “solve the problem of cancer” within a decade by using ground-breaking computer science to crack the code of diseased cells so they can be reprogrammed back to a healthy state."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/09/20/micr...
Will the tech companies really have more success at tackling such diseases? (Compared to say drug companies, and more conventional medical scientists).
To be fair Microsoft's efforts (which are aimed initially at improving cancer detection and treatment) are being mainly carried out by cross-discipline personnel with some pretty heavyweight biology/medical scientific credentials. They haven't just taken a few people off the Excel dev team but instead have hired actual experts and have been applying computing methodologies and technology in ways that make a lot of sense but would be beyond most "traditional" medical research facilities simply because they don't have access to the sort of cutting edge computing researchers and technology and their approach has already shown some promising results."Microsoft has vowed to “solve the problem of cancer” within a decade by using ground-breaking computer science to crack the code of diseased cells so they can be reprogrammed back to a healthy state."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/09/20/micr...
Will the tech companies really have more success at tackling such diseases? (Compared to say drug companies, and more conventional medical scientists).
It's also worth a mention that quite a few great medical advances have come from outside the medical profession - take MRI as a classic example. That came from a team up between a physicist and a chemist
As for Zuckerburg, I really don't like the odious little douchenozzle and I'll acknowledge this might be colouring my perception a bit here but I can't help thinking that this is really isn't as impressive as he's trying to make us all believe. $3 billion over 10 years sounds like an astronomical sum of money to those of us who will never see $1 billion (let alone 3!) in our whole lives yet in reality it is fk all compared to the over £21 billion the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given in the last 6 years ($5.5 billion on infectious disease control alone). So they'll get some very good stuff done and that's fantastic and something I genuinely think should be recognised and applauded but all this "let's cure all diseases" guff is just him giving his ego an expensive handjob.
turbobloke said:
judas said:
13m said:
steveT350C said:
Microsoft aiming to crack cancer code using artificial intelligence.....
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/20/microsoft-wants-...
They can't even fix their own software, so I'm not holding out much hope that they'll cure cancer.https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/20/microsoft-wants-...
Big Pharma come at their research from a particular direction - it's incremental, "standing on the shoulders of giants", as Newton put it.
It gets done that way because it's safe. Every treatment goes through long testing processes.
My guess is that Zuckerberg will be throwing his money at getting medical research onto a tech company cycle - innovating, testing and evaluating new treatments in weeks instead of years. If he can do that, and research he funds will see results exponentially quicker than the conventional methods. The risks are higher, but so are the rewards.
It gets done that way because it's safe. Every treatment goes through long testing processes.
My guess is that Zuckerberg will be throwing his money at getting medical research onto a tech company cycle - innovating, testing and evaluating new treatments in weeks instead of years. If he can do that, and research he funds will see results exponentially quicker than the conventional methods. The risks are higher, but so are the rewards.
JagLover said:
dandarez said:
Not read it, but surely he doesn't want everyone to live forever?
Becoming disease free for a lifetime doesn't prevent you dying ...eventually. Does it?
Life has a 100% mortality rate.Becoming disease free for a lifetime doesn't prevent you dying ...eventually. Does it?
If one thing doesn't get you another thing will.
For example rising life expectancy has meant your chance of developing cancer at some point in your life has increased from 1/3 to 1/2 (per cancer research)
If all cancer is treatable then other age degenerative conditions will become more prevalent.
Leaving aside Sci-fi solutions like reversing the ageing process all we are talking about is advancing medical technology extending life-spans by a few years.
Something to be welcomed IMO, as long as those extra years are healthy ones, overpopulation elsewhere in the world is an irrelevance.
turbobloke said:
judas said:
13m said:
steveT350C said:
Microsoft aiming to crack cancer code using artificial intelligence.....
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/20/microsoft-wants-...
They can't even fix their own software, so I'm not holding out much hope that they'll cure cancer.https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/20/microsoft-wants-...
Oh god, noooooo. The big W. W10. Oh fk! What st luck.
I knew, I just knew it was serious.
fking hell, if only it had been 7 or 8 I could have survived.
Troubleatmill said:
$3 Billion... = nada in pharma R&D worldwide.
Nice gesture though.
Will help move things on a bit.
But a drop in the ocean.
Over a ten year period this funding represents around 10% of that which will be spent by the UK's research councils on all science.Nice gesture though.
Will help move things on a bit.
But a drop in the ocean.
In terms of funding this is significant.
Talksteer said:
Troubleatmill said:
$3 Billion... = nada in pharma R&D worldwide.
Nice gesture though.
Will help move things on a bit.
But a drop in the ocean.
Over a ten year period this funding represents around 10% of that which will be spent by the UK's research councils on all science.Nice gesture though.
Will help move things on a bit.
But a drop in the ocean.
In terms of funding this is significant.
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