While he is mostly known for his digital exploits, having founded the music service Napster and served as President of Facebook, digital billionaire Sean Parker is now setting his sights on another target: Cancer. While he remains active in the business of music streaming by sitting on the board of Spotify, Parker has created the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Funding it with $250 million Parker hopes that he can give the cancer moonshot program proposed by President Obama an infusion of cash and talent by funding collaborative efforts of over 40 universities and 300 scientists.
He's spreading the wealth to other areas of research as well by donating to allergy research at Stanford University and malaria research at UC San Francisco. Finally, he donated $1 million to efforts to legalize marijuana in California. In typical "tech speak" Parker described his funding of cancer research as a "virtual sandbox" where scientists from varying fields can come together and pool their information for the greater goal of defeating cancer as well as other diseases.
