Thu Sep 19 11:27:00 UTC 2024: ## Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Joins Forces with Scale Bio for Groundbreaking “100 Million Cell Challenge”

**San Francisco, CA – September 19, 2024** – Scale Biosciences (Scale Bio), a leader in single-cell analysis solutions, today announced that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) has joined as a partner in the “100 Million Cell Challenge.” CZI will fully subsidize support for 50 million cells’ worth of awarded projects. This partnership comes amidst an overwhelming response to the challenge, with researchers pledging to analyze over 100 million cells within days of its launch last month.

The “100 Million Cell Challenge” aims to push the boundaries of single-cell genomics research by encouraging large-scale projects across diverse biological systems. With the support of CZI, along with collaborators Ultima Genomics and NVIDIA, the initiative is poised to make a significant impact on the scientific community, accelerating research into complex biological systems and fostering new discoveries.

“Scale Bio’s visionary ‘100 Million Cell Challenge’ aligns with our efforts to support the single cell research community and create foundational resources that accelerate science,” said Jonah Cool, Cell Science Senior Program Officer at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. “We’re excited to support scientists to participate in this groundbreaking challenge and to make this research publicly available on Chan Zuckerberg Cell by Gene Discover.”

Giovanna Prout, CEO of Scale Bio, added, “CZI’s commitment to this challenge not only validates the importance of large-scale single cell studies, it also significantly expands the scope of what researchers can achieve.”

The scientific community has shown tremendous interest in the challenge, submitting 40 projects spanning a wide range of disciplines. These projects include creating comprehensive organ system atlases, investigating cellular heterogeneity in disease states, and exploring cross-species comparisons in regenerative processes.

The “100 Million Cell Challenge” is enabled by Scale Bio’s new QuantumScale technology, a single-cell RNA sequencing solution capable of processing up to 2 million cells per run. This technology is designed to empower researchers to pursue ambitious, large-scale projects with its high efficiency, data quality, and affordability.

The challenge remains open for proposals until October 15, 2024, at midnight PDT. Projects proposing to analyze 1 million cells or more are eligible for consideration. Selected projects will be announced at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) Annual Meeting in November 2024.

For more information about the “100 Million Cell Challenge” and to submit a proposal, visit scale.bio/100MillionCells.

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