Half of all human deaths are caused by inflammation, and a new Chicago-based biomedical research facility will attempt to change that.
The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago is a momentous step for Chicago’s burgeoning biotech industry, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said at a launch event for the center Thursday morning.
“Biohub Chicago has the capacity to revolutionize our understanding of the fundamental design rules for human biology, laying the groundwork for trailblazing advances in our ability to treat and prevent chronic inflammatory diseases, from cancer to autoimmune and neurodegenerative conditions,” Pritzker said.
“That’s a big deal. And we are at the center of it,” the governor said.
The biohub is from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, founded by Dr. Priscilla Chan and her husband and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2015. The two established the initiative with the ambitious goal of eradicating all diseases by the end of the century.
“When we founded CZI, we knew there were major gaps in scientific knowledge of what actually causes us to get sick at the most basic level in our bodies,” Chan said.
The center, made possible by a $250 million investment from Chan and Zuckerberg, is a collaboration with the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The state is also providing $25 million to cover infrastructure costs for the facility.
Biohub researchers will study human tissues to better understand and treat chronic inflammatory diseases, which include cancer, heart and kidney diseases, multiple sclerosis, strokes and diabetes.
“About 50% of human deaths are connected to chronic inflammation. By having this biological focus, we’re able to get to the basis of many diseases and shift the focus from end-stage disease or the symptoms of disease and really getting to the cause,” said Shana Kelley, Biohub Chicago’s president.
The lab is a dream come true for Kelley, who is also a professor at Northwestern in the departments of chemistry, biomedical engineering, and biochemistry and molecular genetics.
Scientists at the lab will start by learning the very basics of what drives inflammation in the human body.
They hope to answer such questions as why COVID-19 triggers inflammation in the lungs, heart and brain, leading to long COVID? Or what’s happening in someone’s cells when a condition like multiple sclerosis causes a sudden flare-up of inflammation?
“We’re going to study how it starts, why it persists, why it gets worse, and we really want to learn how to turn it around, how to treat it or how to prevent it entirely. But that requires completely new technology that doesn’t exist yet,” Kelley said.
The lab will also develop that very technology. That effort will include building tiny sensors that are embedded in living human tissues and creating bioengineered tissue. Those sensors will take precise measurements and identify the moment a cell becomes inflamed.
“This technology and this approach will allow us to watch the very early events in inflammation,” Kelley said. “And we think that the technologies that we develop, the applications will go far beyond inflammation and can be applied to many other systems.”
Chicago was one of 58 applicants from across the country to house the center. The city was picked because of the strong spirit of collaboration among the three universities, Chan said.
“I wish we could stand here and read line by line the application from these three universities,” Chan said. “It was riveting and reflected the expertise of the teams, but also the excellence that this city is known for — the tenacity, the grit. and not incidentally, the enthusiasm of the city’s leadership.”
While the center is still being built in Fulton Market, scientists have begun working on research, and 50 people from the Chicago area will be hired to work at the biohub, Kelley said. Construction of the 28,000-square-foot lab space in the Fulton Labs building began in August and will be completed by January.
“We are assembling a team, the best and brightest from Chicago. We have an incredible talent pool in this city,” Kelley said. “And I can tell you without hesitation that folks in this city and at this biohub, we’re on a mission to put Chicago on the map for biomedicine.”
This is the second biomedical hub from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The first is based in San Francisco and focuses on cell science and infectious diseases. That hub, established in 2016, is also a collaboration of three universities in California’s Bay Area: University of California Berkeley, Stanford University and University of California San Francisco.
