© 2024 KRWG
News that Matters.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Tech Billionaire Sean Parker Puts $250 Million Into Cancer Research

Napster co-founder, Sean Parker, General Partner of Founders Fund, talks at LeWeb 11 event in Saint-Denis, suburbs of Paris, on December 9, 2011. Top industry entrepreneurs, executives, investors, senior press and bloggers gathered during three days to explore the key issues and opportunities in the web marketplace. (ERIC PIERMONT/AFP/Getty Images)
Napster co-founder, Sean Parker, General Partner of Founders Fund, talks at LeWeb 11 event in Saint-Denis, suburbs of Paris, on December 9, 2011. Top industry entrepreneurs, executives, investors, senior press and bloggers gathered during three days to explore the key issues and opportunities in the web marketplace. (ERIC PIERMONT/AFP/Getty Images)

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Sean Parker, of Napster and Facebook fame, announced today that he’s pouring $250 million into cancer research – specifically to explore immunotherapy treatment, which tries to get the body’s immune system to attack cancer cells.

Another key piece of Parker’s effort is getting several hundred scientists, who are normally in intense competition with one another, to join forces and share research.

Here & Now’s Robin Young talks with Sharon Begley, senior science writer at the health and medicine publication STAT, about Parker’s new effort, and how it fits in with President Obama’s “cancer moonshot.”

Guest

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.