$121.5M in expenses
In 2024, the four research institutes of chan zuckerberg biohub INC ("biohub") made significant advances in the organization's overall mission to cure, prevent or manage disease.in june, researchers at the chan zuckerberg institute for advanced biological imaging announced that they had solved a major bottleneck in the use of the imaging technique known as cryogenic electron tomography, or cryoet. This method is capable of capturing detailed structural images of cells and proteins, but the resulting 3d datasets, known as tomograms, must be manually annotated, a painstaking process that can take months, slowing the pace of scientific discovery. By applying new machine learning tools, the imaging institute researchers automatically annotated 13,000 tomograms in just three-and-a-half days. In addition, the institute launched the cryoet data portal, an open access data repository that contains about 16,000 annotated cryoet datasets in standardized formats. Both achievements will benefit bioimaging scientists worldwide by accelerating understanding of the proteins that make up our cells.in a scientific milestone, the san francisco biohub researchers released "zebrahub," an atlas of early zebrafish development. Published in the journal cell in november, zebrahub combines state-of-the-art 3d microscopy with comprehensive gene-expression data for the individual cells that make up zebrafish embryos. The microscopes, gene-sequencing techniques, and image analysis tools used to create zebrahub were designed and built at the biohub. About 70% of human genes, including those involved in diseases, have counterparts in zebrafish, so zebrahub will accelerate disease research across cancer, heart disease, and neurological disorders providing freely accessible data that will help biomedical researchers worldwide identify new treatments.october saw the official launch of the new york biohub, devoted to characterizing and engineering the behavior of our immune cells. These engineered cells can be adapted to detect signals that predict several diseases, from cancers to alzheimer's and parkinson's, at their earliest stages, when they are easier to treat or prevent, and long before they can be detected by conventional diagnostic methods. The new york biohub also began construction of permanent, state-of-the-art lab space on columbia university's manhattanville campus, made new hires, and funded its first cohort of investigators from its partner institutions: columbia university, the rockefeller university, and yale university.the team at chicago biohub tackled a longstanding problem in bioengineering by building a first-of-its-kind implantable sensor that can monitor levels of the proteins involved in inflammation in real time. Sensors that monitor glucose, a small molecule, have revolutionized diabetes care, but scientists have struggled to obtain the reliable, continuous measurements of proteins achieved by the new sensor, as reported in the journal science in december. It has been estimated that 50% of all deaths are related to inflammatory conditions, and the novel sensor places an important new tool in the hands of researchers to better understand and potentially prevent a range of diseases, from neurodegeneration to cancer to heart disease.