Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a goal that's even more ambitious than connecting the entire world to the internet: He and his wife want to help eradicate¹ all disease by the end of this century.

与用互联网连接整个世界相比，社交网站脸谱首席执行官马克•扎克伯格有更为雄心勃勃的目标：他和妻子想要在本世纪末帮助治愈人类所有疾病。

Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan are committing $3 billion over the next 10 years to accelerate basic scientific research, including the creation of research tools — from software to hardware to yet-undiscovered techniques — they hope will ultimately lead to scientific breakthroughs, the way the microscope and DNA² sequencing have in generations past.

扎克伯格和普莉希拉•陈宣布在未来十年中，将投资30亿美元用于基础科学研究，包括软件、硬件以及新技术等研究工具的开发。他们希望最终能够实现像显微镜和DNA测序那样的巨大科学突破。

The goal, which they are unlikely to live to see accomplished³, is to 'cure, prevent or manage all disease' in the next 80 or so years.

这一目标旨在接下来80年的时间里治疗、预防或控制所有的疾病，尽管在两人有生之年不大可能看到目标实现。

They acknowledge that this might sound crazy, but point to how far medicine and science have come in the last century — with vaccines⁴, statins for heart disease, chemotherapy, and so on — following millennia⁵ with little progress.

他们承认这听起来有点疯狂，但在过去一千年间未有明显进展的医药科学在疫苗、心脏病抑制素、化学治疗等方面取得重大进步也不过就是一个世纪的事情。

He and Chan have spent the past two years speaking to scientists and other experts to plan the endeavor.

过去两年间夫妇俩一直在同科学家和其它专家商讨此项计划。

He emphasized 'that this isn't something where we just read a book and decided⁶ we're going to do.'

扎克伯格强调这个计划并不是我们哪天看了一本书然后突然决定要做的。

Through their philanthropic organization, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the commitment includes $600 million to fund a new research center in San Francisco where scientific and medical researchers will work alongside engineers on long-term projects spanning years or even decades.

二人通过自己的慈善组织陈•扎克伯格基金会向旧金山新建的一所研究中心捐赠6亿美元，资助科学和医学研究人员和工程师进行长期项目的合作，该项目将延续好几年甚至几十年。

The goal is not to focus narrowly on specific ailments⁷, such as bone cancer or Parkinson's disease, but rather to do basic research.

该项目的目标将不是局限于治疗像骨癌和帕金森氏症等一类的特殊疾病，而是致力于基础研究。

One example: a cell atlas⁸ that maps out all the different types of cells in the body, which could help researchers create various types of drugs.

例如：绘制细胞图谱。图谱包含了体内所有类型的细胞，可帮助研究人员研发出不同类型的药物。

Chan's work as a pediatrician seems to be a big driver in their couple's decision to take up this latest cause.

作为儿科医生，陈女士似乎在这项捐赠决定中起了非常大的推动作用。

'I've been with families where we've hit the limit of what's possible through medicine and science,' Chan said.

陈女士说：行医过程中，我曾遇到一些病患家庭，尽管我们已经尝试了当代医药科学的一切手段也无力回天。

'I've had to tell families devastating⁹ diagnoses of leukemia, or that we just weren't able to resuscitate¹⁰ their child.'

而我能做的要么是通知家属孩子患上白血病的噩耗，要么是残忍地告诉他们我们无能为力。

Zuckerberg and Chan hope that their effort will inspire other far-reaching efforts and collaboration¹¹ in science, medicine and engineering, so that basic research is no longer relegated¹² to the margins¹³.

扎克伯格和陈女士希望他们的努力能够启发其他人投入进来，在更广泛的领域促进科学、医药和工程的合作，让基础研究不再被边缘化。

'We spend 50 times more on health care treating people who are sick than we spend on science research (to cure) diseases so that people don't get sick in the first place,' Zuckerberg said.

扎克伯格说，我们用于治疗身体不适的人群的保健资金比用于治疗疾病的科研资金多50倍，为的就是让人们从一开始就不得病。

He added that the approach reflects a belief that 'people are always going to suffer from disease so therefore we should focus on treating people who are sick.'

他还说这反映出的是一种信念，人们早晚都要经历这些疾病，因此我们应该集中全力治疗身体不适但尚未得病的人。

The two stressed that they believe that their goal can be accomplished, if not in their lifetime, then in their child's lifetime.

扎克伯格夫妇强调，他们相信目标一定能够实现，如果不是在他们的有生之年，就是在他们孩子生活的年代。

It was Max's birth last November that inspired the billionaire couple to give away nearly all their money to help solve the world's problems.

去年十一月份扎克伯格女儿麦柯斯的出生促使这对亿万富豪夫妇捐献出几乎全部财产，用于解决世界难题。