New York Construction Report staff writer
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will invest $250 million to build the new Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York and bring together experts from Columbia University, The Rockefeller University, and Yale University to focus on early disease prevention, detection, and treatment.
The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and Empire State Development (ESD) will each contribute $10 million to the project.
“New York City’s unparalleled diversity, thriving innovation ecosystem, and world-class research institutions have made us a life sciences powerhouse,” said Mayor Eric Adams. “Thanks to this nearly $300 million joint effort with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Governor Hochul, and three top-tier academic institutions, the new Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York will break biomedical barriers.”
Led by Professor Andrea Califano of Columbia University, the site will focus on creating new technologies to characterize and bioengineer immune cells with the goal of creating disease-specific “cellular endoscopes” that can detect early stages of disease in cells, monitor cell changes, and resolve diseases before they become untreatable.
The City of New York is on track to create 1,000 companies and 40,000 jobs, unlock 10 million square feet of wet- and dry-lab real estate, and generate billions of dollars in economic impact over the next 15 years.
In March, the governor announced plans for a $50 million “Lab of the Future” in Midtown Manhattan that will rely on automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to make the preclinical drug discovery process faster, more data-driven, and cost-effective.
