UC Berkeley is partnering with UC San Francisco and Stanford University as founding scientific members of a new institute that aims to accelerate breakthroughs in complex diseases.

The Arc Institute was officially launched today (Dec. 15) with the goal of developing a new model for collaborative research that brings together world-class research with unconstrained funding to enable new discoveries that improve human health.

The institute has raised more than $650 million from founding donors, including Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe, a financial services and software company, to fully support scientists and their research for renewable eight-year terms.

Joining Collison are founding researchers Silvana Konermann, Stanford assistant professor of biochemistry, and Patrick Hsu, Berkeley assistant professor of bioengineering.

All three were part of the team behind last year’s Fast Grants program, which, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, provided immediate funding to researchers with promising ideas.