Google DeepMind, Meta, and Isomorphic Labs invest $300M in Biohub’s ‘virtual cell’ initiative

Google DeepMind, Meta, and AI drug discovery startup Isomorphic Labs are jointly committing $300 million to Biohub’s ‘Virtual Biology’ initiative, which aims to create a ‘virtual cell’ for researchers to digitally simulate biological processes and combat disease. The project is led by Biohub, a nonprofit biomedical research organization founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan in 2016.

Biohub will use the investment to develop AI datasets that allow researchers to ‘ask, predict, and answer biological questions digitally,’ according to a press release. The initiative is part of a broader $1.8 billion effort to build tools for digital biological research.

The U.S. Department of Energy is separately investing more than $500 million over five years to support the project, while the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is contributing datasets, repositories, and knowledge bases derived from over $500 million in prior federal investments.

Alex Rives, Biohub’s head of science, stated in the press release that an accurate predictive model of biology could ‘dramatically accelerate scientific discovery by enabling scientists to perform experiments digitally.’ The initiative frames the creation of a virtual cell as ‘one of the most important challenges for the next era of science.’