To cure, prevent, or manage all disease by the end of the century, we need all voices at the table. At CZI, we know that building a future for everyone wouldn’t be possible without the incredible women on our science team. We’re honoring International Day of Women and Girls in…

Understanding software used by scientists by mining the biomedical literature — At the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), we believe open source tools are critical to accelerating scientific discovery. In an effort to improve our understanding of the impact of software (and scientific open source in particular) in biomedical science, we’re releasing the CZ Software Mentions Dataset — a dataset entirely composed…

What is the connection between genes, lifestyle, and disease? That’s the question driving most biomedical research today. Until recently, researchers haven’t had sufficient information to answer it. …

A conversation on growing global communities with local roots — Authors: Laura Ación, Gonzalo Peña-Castellanos, Fernando Pérez At the 2021 Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) Essential Open Source Software for Science (EOSS) meeting, CZI hosted a panel with Laura Ación and Gonzalo Peña Castellanos, moderated by Fernando Pérez. This post represents reflections on the topics covered and those that weren’t due…

An innovative new resource helps scientists probe the genetics of neurodegenerative diseases — A new research resource makes it easier for scientists to model neurodegenerative diseases in a dish, catalyzing progress toward effective preventions and treatments. It consists of a collection of stem cell lines engineered with genetic mutations linked to neurodegenerative diseases. Researchers can use these cells to investigate how genetic changes…

Editor’s Note: This post has been updated as of 7/26/22 with the new name of CZ CELLxGENE (formerly cellxgene). Every day, biomedical journals publish roughly 4,000 new articles. The vast majority make incremental contributions to the body of scientific knowledge — but a handful signal greater change. Four such papers…

When an influenza pandemic began to sweep the globe in 1918, doctors and scientists had limited tools for investigating the deadly disease. Viruses were too small to see with the microscopes of the day. So people wrongly blamed the illness on what was visible under the lens, a bacteria they…

Supporting Rare Disease Infrastructure and Announcing Two New Patient-Partnered RFAs — February is Rare Disease Month, where the world shines a light on the 400 million people globally affected by over 7,000 rare diseases. Despite these overwhelming numbers, most people have never heard of these diseases. The vast majority of rare disease patients — isolated by the rarity of their diseases…

The human body is incredibly complex — each organ made of different tissues with trillions of cells and millions of proteins in each one that orchestrate every biological process. Biomedical research has advanced our understanding of how our bodies work, but it still only provides a snapshot of the human…