CZI is working with 228 Accelerator to support districts as they institute remote learning plans and immediate relief for students. Their support focuses on ensuring student and teacher perspectives are meaningfully included in the design of their work.

Addgene is a global, nonprofit repository that helps scientists share plasmids, prepared viral vectors, and other DNA-based reagents for use in research. When scientists publish research papers, they deposit their associated plasmids at Addgene. Then, when other scientists read the publication, they have easy access to the plasmids needed to conduct future experiments. Scientists ship their plasmids to Addgene once, and Addgene takes care of the quality control, compliance, shipping, and record-keeping.

Addgene’s repository service provides reagents essential to coronavirus research, and demand for this important resource has grown as scientists needed a place to archive and store reagents while their laboratories were closed. CZI is supporting Addgene as a critical resource necessary for labs around the world to start research again as they reopen.

CZI is partnering with  the Alliance for Excellent Education and its Future Ready Network of superintendents and educators to advance solutions that address home internet connectivity for children who do not currently have access to it.

CZI committed $13.6 million to stand up a large-scale research collaboration between UC San Francisco, Stanford University, and the CZ Biohub that aims to better understand the spread of COVID-19 across the San Francisco Bay Area.

Over nine months, the consortium will support two long-term studies. The first, which will sample a broad, representative population of the Bay Area, will provide data crucial for informing policy decisions about how to safely reopen California’s economy and how to make sure transmission remains low while we await a vaccine. The second, which is focused on Bay Area healthcare workers, will examine whether COVID-19 antibodies protect individuals against reinfection, and if so, for how long. The information could be critical to protecting frontline healthcare workers around the globe.

CZI is supporting the Beloved Community’s efforts to support schools and district leaders to apply an equity lens across their COVID-19 relief decision-making and planning.

The rise of preprints in biomedicine demonstrates how technology and open science are accelerating scientific discovery. Traditionally, it takes anywhere from several months to several years for papers to be drafted, peer-reviewed, and published in a journal. That’s unacceptably slow for learning about a virus that is spreading in weeks. Researchers around the world are sharing new scientific results on the free online repositories medRxiv and bioRxiv in the form of preprints, or draft scientific papers. CZI awarded $2 million to support medRxiv, the top global source of breaking COVID-19 research.

During the Ebola and Zika outbreaks, only about 5 percent of published research papers were shared in the form of a preprint, with most relevant papers appearing in journals after the epidemics had subsided. By contrast, over 7,000 preprints related to the COVID-19 pandemic have been posted to a variety of preprint servers in less than six months, with nearly 5,500 of them posted to the independent, not-for-profit bioRxiv and medRxiv platforms.

As scientific results are shared quickly, scientists are upholding the principles of academic integrity by providing real-time assessment of preprints on bioRxiv and medRxiv and on social media. This critical review allows the self-correcting nature of science to take place in public — and helps to stop misinformation early.

CZI is provided $1.5 million to the Resilience Fund, which will deliver immediate direct relief to undocumented families in response to COVID-19 and is also intended to support the well-being and resilience of California immigrant communities over the long term. A $500,000 portion of the award will support immigrant families and communities in the Bay Area, where CZI is headquartered. The Resilience Fund is part of a public-private partnership with Governor Gavin Newsom, who announced a separate $75 million state-financed immigrant relief fund. Learn more here.

CZI is working with CatalystEd to connect principals and district leaders to coaching and planning support based on its COVID-19 Response Roadmaps.

In collaboration with CZI and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, UCSF was able to acquire more clinical diagnostics machines — allowing them to significantly increase their ability to test and diagnose new Bay Area COVID-19 cases.

We are also assisting UCSF to expand their clinical laboratory testing for COVID-19, not just with the purchase of equipment, but with operational support, informatics and protocol development, all within an expanded UCSF CLIA lab adjacent to the Biohub. Through these efforts, UCSF’s testing capacity has increased to processing more than 2,600 samples per day, returning results in as fast as 24 hours. In addition, UCSF is offering COVID-19 testing free of charge to the Public Health Departments of all 58 California counties.

Also in partnership with CZI and the State of California, the Biohub is providing free whole genome sequencing and analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to all California Departments of Public Health and California local health jurisdictions through a newly-launched effort called the California COVID Tracker. This effort is the first of its kind in the U.S. and will help local public health officials better map the virus.

The CZ Biohub is also helping to facilitate connections between UCSF and other Bay Area hospitals that need more COVID-19 tests with Stanford Medicine. Stanford, which developed and launched an in-house test in March, hopes to increase capacity to more than 1,000 tests per day.

Watch the video of CZI co-founders Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Live conversation with CZ Biohub co-president Joseph DeRisi on how CZI and the Biohub are responding to the coronavirus pandemic. As part of CNN’s weekly coronavirus Town Hall, Priscilla and Mark also talked with Anderson Cooper about CZI’s response to COVID-19.

The CZI and CZ Biohub-developed (formerly IDseq) tool has enabled researchers in Cambodia to sequence and confirm the country’s first case of COVID-19 in a matter of days — not the weeks it could typically take. The Cambodian researchers (trained with a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) were able to proactively assess what was happening locally by prepping and sequencing the full genome of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in-house (via Chan Zuckerberg ID ) instead of sending those samples to a lab in another country for processing. 

In order to make this information accessible to as many scientists as possible, teams uploaded a manuscript summarizing their findings and the impact of in-country sequencing to preprint server bioRxiv. They also launched a public version of CZ ID so scientists could study these data. Finally, they uploaded the genome sequence to open source pathogen data repositories, GISAID (Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data), and Nextstrain, so scientists anywhere can see the full genome sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and study it within the broader context of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus sequences uploaded globally.

Researchers at the Cambodian National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control (CNM) and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) partnered with the Institut Pasteur Cambodia to complete this research. For more information, read our newsroom post. 

CZI is partnering with Common Sense Media to continue developing their Wide Open School program, a free and openly accessible collection of online learning experiences and social and community services for kids and families.

Researchers and leaders from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Microsoft Research, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health have worked to prepare and distribute a set of research literature about COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, and the coronavirus group. 

The new COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19) will continue to be updated as new insights are published in archival services (e.g., bioRxiv, medRxiv, and others) and peer-reviewed publications. With these machine-readable resources accessible and available for data analysis, the worldwide machine learning community has the opportunity to apply recent advances in natural language processing to find answers to questions within, and connect insights across, this content in support of the ongoing fight against this infectious disease. For more information, read our newsroom post.

CZI is supporting the Council of Chief School Officers (CCSSO) in their work to provide state education leaders timely resources and support for preparedness, response, and recovery around school closures.

CZI is working with Crisis Text Line, the nation’s largest text-based crisis service, to enable them to expand the reach of their more than 27,000 trained, volunteer counselors who provide real-time support to individuals in crisis — and refer them to local care and services.

CZI is partnering with Diversity Talks to turn their youth-led professional development into a webinar series aimed at engaging in racial-equity oriented conversations, understanding the emotional needs of young people and sharing best practices for virtual engagement.

CZI is working with Education Leaders of Color to bring school and district leaders together in an online forum to solve the most pressing problems school and system leaders are identifying throughout the COVID-19 crisis. They will also provide up to 30 collaboration grants to participants.

CZI is working with EducationSuperHighway to accelerate the closing of the home digital learning gap in the Bay Area and across the country. EducationSuperHighWay is partnering with school districts to help them provide strategies for extending connectivity to students from underserved communities who need to participate in distance learning due to COVID-19 and related school closures.

CZI is working with The Education Trust to meet the challenge of educating children during the coronavirus pandemic, with a focus on students of color and those from low-income families. This effort will include expanding access to broadband services and mitigating learning loss in the short- and long-term, as well as food and nutrition services.

CZI is providing support to Equal Opportunity Schools (EOS) to help leaders develop plans to ensure educational equity and access to learning while empowering historically marginalized students. EOS is also providing virtual training to create spaces for innovation throughout the COVID-19 crisis.

CZI is working with the Equity Institute (EI) to offer school district partners the opportunity to engage with its learning labs virtually while providing direct support to promote educational equity during this crisis.

CZI is supporting Fugees Academy in their work to help foster the safety and well-being of their students – who represent nearly 40 countries of origin and speak nearly 50 languages – during this time of school closures. Their unique model includes a positive focus on identity and culture, and comprehensive support of refugee families, which includes helping students and families access social services, medical services and health insurance. At their tuition-free independent schools in Georgia and Ohio, the funding will help limit additional disruptions and ensure continuity in the students’ education. 

CZI is partnering with Healthy Minds Innovations to expand the reach of its Healthy Minds Program, an app-based training program designed to help educators develop “brain-based skills” that build resilience in four domains: awareness, connection, insight, and purpose. Founded in 2014 by world-renowned neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson, the Wisconsin-based nonprofits driven by a mission to translate science into tools to cultivate well-being.

CZI is working with the International Society for Education Technology (ISTE) to enable the organization to provide guidance and support to school districts as they move learning online due to the spread of COVID-19. ISTE will be providing a free online portal with resources for educators and staffing a full-time helpline with experts from across the country to provide real-time support to school decision makers – particularly around supporting young students and special student populations. ISTE will stand up an ecosystem of trusted service providers that can meet school needs at this time. ISTE will partner with the broader education field, including teachers’ unions, education technology associations and advocacy and policy organizations, on a unified support plan for schools moving to remote learning.

CZI is working with Kingmakers of Oakland to support school districts across the U.S. to ensure meaningful engagement and wellbeing of African American male students during school and district response efforts.

CZI is working with Latinos for Education to provide virtual training to educators and education leaders across the country focused on the needs of Latino students, teachers and families via their new online platform EdCentro.

CZI is partnering with Leading Educators to provide tools and evidence-based guidance that meet school districts’ needs to address unfinished learning and meet the health and emotional needs of students and adults during COVID relief efforts.

CZI is partnering with Mississippi First, a nonpartisan policy and advocacy organization that advocates for a quality education for all Mississippi students, including working with a national coalition on solutions to home internet connectivity, a significant concern in Mississippi’s rural communities and for its underserved, minority populations.

CZI is working with Moonshot edVentures to build a diverse pipeline of school leaders as they launch and maintain distance learning environments that support student and teacher wellbeing.

CZI is working with the National Governors Association and its Center for Best Practices to support governors in identifying school and community needs and gaps in student and family access to technology and connectivity to allow for the continuity of learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and in identifying potential solutions that advance students’ learning.

CZI is supporting the efforts of the National Parents Union (NPU) to translate and provide information on health, economic and educational resources to parents and families through NPU’s network of more than 200 parent organizations and grassroots activists across the country. The National Parents Union is partnering with Great Schools, EdNavigator, Learning Heroes, TNTP, ExcelinEd, Prepared Parents and local public access channels in its efforts to provide critical information on resources to low income families, communities of color, formerly incarcerated parents, foster families, parents with disabilities, parents of children with special needs, grandparents and LGBTQAI families.

CZI is partnering with the New Teacher Center to create a COVID-19 Community Hub that includes a series of student-centered, evidence-based communities of practice, webinars and resources for teachers and leaders.

CZI is working with New York City Leadership Academy to sponsor coaching and customized services for education leaders school districts across the country. Training will be available online on a continuous basis and they will be producing open source materials to share with 15,000 leaders across their network.

Scientists have been using another CZI-funded platform — protocols.io — for sharing research methods. This includes the sequencing and detection protocols for coronavirus (for research only, and not for clinical diagnosis). All protocols are fully accessible, citable, and editable. 

To help support getting accurate, science-based health information to the public about COVID-19, CZI is proud to support organizations that are dedicating campaigns, resources and coverage to this effort. This includes the California Governor’s Office’s COVID-19 public education campaign and special reporting by PBS NewsHour, including the primetime broadcast Confronting Coronavirus: A PBS NewsHour Special, Univision’s COVID-19 coverage and public service campaigns, and a virtual, free public series by the Commonwealth Club of California addressing several facets of the pandemic.

• Watch the video of our co-CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Live conversation with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on what the public needs to know about COVID-19 and how the NIH is responding.

“RACE FOR THE VACCINE” is a documentary exploring the global quest to develop, trial, manufacture, and distribute effective vaccines to fight the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. The film, which was supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, follows a small group of elite scientists across the globe as they launch into action, taking on one of the biggest challenges in the history of modern medicine. The filmmakers established rare access behind several of the principal COVID-19 candidate vaccines, including three of the first to make it through human clinical trials and offer real hope for controlling the virus. Among those to grant an inside look include the team behind Pfizer/BioNTech’s candidate vaccine, top scientists from the U.S. NIH, who worked with Moderna as well as a group from Oxford University, whose vector-borne approach is the basis for the low-cost AstraZeneca. The documentary is a vital mix of reverence for the scientific discovery process and a compelling story of human advancement. “RACE FOR THE VACCINE” will air on CNN in the U.S. on May 15 from 9pm-11pm ET and on in the U.K under the title “VACCINE: THE INSIDE STORY ” as part of the Horizon series on BBC Two in early June. Watch the trailer here.

With $225 million in initial funding ($100 million from the Gates Foundation, $75 million from CZI, and $50 million from Bloomberg Philanthropies), Resolve to Save Lives launched in 2017 with a goal of reducing the risk of epidemics. Resolve (among other efforts), has been instrumental in providing immediate funding to African countries for rapid response teams and front-line health care workers, and supporting the World Health Organization, World Bank and other partners on this issue.

CZI committed an initial $5 million to support Bay Area public health agencies, organizations, and school districts in their emergency and long-term response to COVID-19. From supporting expanded emergency health services, to at-home learning, and programs that assist individuals, families, and local small businesses that are financially impacted by the pandemic , CZI is focused on addressing the needs of the most vulnerable. Learn more here.

CZI supports five distinct projects studying how COVID-19 progresses in patients at the level of individual cells and tissues. This work will generate some of the first single-cell biology datasets from donors infected by SARS-CoV2 and provide critical insights into how the virus infects humans, which cell types are involved, and how the disease progresses. 

The COVID-19 Cell Atlas, supported in part by CZI grants, has provided the most comprehensive resource to date for exploring cell-type specific expression of SARS-CoV2-linked genes. These data have informed our understanding of which cell types are susceptible to viral infection. The five new projects will use similar approaches to profile cells in infected tissues and the immune system in COVID-19 patients.

CZI is providing support to Special Education Leader Fellowship’s (SELF) to work with school and district leaders to develop distance learning plans that provide meaningful support and access to exceptional learners.

As school districts across the country face school closures, CZI is helping the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) to support the development of the SETDA Coalition for eLearning — an online portal of resources, policies, exemplars and professional learning to support state leaders and partners take collective action around teaching and learning in the digital age. To ensure students can continue learning away from brick and mortar schools, it is essential that educators collaborate to provide best practices and a framework for instruction. The coalition provides the opportunity to spark innovation around eLearning related to the COVID-19 virus, inevitable inclement weather and other future disruptive events.

CZI committed $25 million to the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator — a global effort to help speed the development of treatments for COVID-19. In partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and Mastercard, CZI’s investment will support efforts to identify and assess potentially promising therapies for COVID-19, expedite their development, and scale up their production to benefit millions of patients worldwide. 

The COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator is aimed at accelerating and evaluating new and repurposed drugs to treat patients with COVID-19. The Accelerator brings together resources and expertise to lower the financial and technical risk for academia, biotech, and pharmaceutical companies to develop treatments while ensuring equal access to these therapies once they are developed — including making them available and affordable in underserved communities. The Accelerator will work with the World Health Organization, government, and private sector funders and organizations, as well as global regulatory and policy-setting institutions. For more information, read our newsroom post.

CZI is supporting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation to work with state and local chambers to create a public awareness campaign, targeted at states and districts experiencing the greatest need, on addressing home internet connectivity for children who do not currently have access to it.