SAN FRANCISCO -- As a young pediatrician in San Francisco, Priscilla Chan said she would feel embarrassed when she would walk into a young patient's room and not know anything about the rare disease that person was suffering from.
"I would walk into a room and say, 'I don't know anything about your disease. Can you tell me, how do you take care of yourself?'" Chan remembers asking.
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She was less satisfied after going through medical literature and discovering it had fewer answers to treat rare diseases. That was the genesis of a new idea to speed up the fight against rare diseases by letting patient communities take a prominent role in them.
In an exclusive "Good Morning America" interview with Robin Roberts, Chan announced the launch of Rare as One, a new program from Redwood City, Calif.-based Chan Zuckerberg Initiative where she is co-CEO with her husband and Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg.
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The program will invest $4.5 million to patient-led endeavors to fast-track research to find cure for life-threatening rare diseases.
Watch more of Priscilla Chan's interview with Robin Roberts here.