Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan pledge $3 billion to help cure all diseases – Watch!

San Francisco: In a major announcement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, on Wednesday said that they are investing billions over the next decade to make the world a better place to live.

Chan, who is a Pediatrician, said the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will be investing $3 billion over 10 years to help cure, prevent, and manage all disease.

The couple made the announcement Wednesday during an event in San Francisco that was streamed live on Facebook.

Speaking at the first major gathering for the couple's philanthropic venture, Dr Chan said the goal is to “work together to cure, prevent or manage all disease within our children's lifetime”.

"We want to build a future in which our children can live long and rewarding lives," she said.

Chan, who spoke through tears at the event to announce the initiative, also said she hoped to spare parents the pain she had seen while delivering difficult news as a pediatrician.

"In those moments and in many others we're at the limit of what we understand about the human body and disease, the science behind medicine, the limit of our ability to alleviate suffering. We want to push back that boundary," she added.

Zuckerberg, who took the stage after his wife's remarks, said science and the medical community have made rapid advancements over the last 50 years, including eradicating smallpox and nearly eliminating polio without the aid of modern technology.

"Today, just four kinds of diseases cause the majority of deaths," Zuckerberg added in a posting on his Facebook page, citing cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases and neurological diseases. "We can make progress on all of them with the right technology."

The plan includes creating a bioscience research center, called the Biohub, developing a chip to diagnose diseases, and ways to monitor the bloodstream continuously and map cell types in the body.

In December 2015, the couple pledged to give away 99 percent of their wealth over the course of their lifetimes to coincide the birth with of their daughter, Max.

Chan and Zuckerberg will donate $600 million over the next decade to the Biohub in San Francisco, in partnership with researchers and scientists from the University of California, the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University.