About us

The terms emerging and neglected diseases encompass a variety of debilitating, and often deadly, infections. Emerging diseases are newly recognized diseases. Their cause or origin is unknown or, increasingly, they may be newly emerging drug-resistant forms of familiar pathogens. Our lack of tools for prevention, treatment, and control of emerging diseases, combined with their potential spread through international travel and trade, poses a special threat to world health.

Neglected diseases, on the other hand, have co-existed with humans for millennia. They include a range of familiar and rare infections such as malaria, tuberculosis, and leprosy that are largely endemic in the developing world. For some of these diseases, tools for prevention, treatment, and control exist, but fail to reach populations that are most in need. For others, there is a complete lack of tools to support disease control.

CEND was established as a multi-disciplinary research unit in 2008, with the support of a generous donation by Henry H. “Sam” Wheeler, Jr. More than 60 faculty from multiple schools, colleges, and divisions at UC Berkeley, spanning the fields of biology, chemistry, engineering, public health, law, economics, and business, are affiliated with CEND. We have also established partnerships and collaborations with other academic institutions, global health nonprofits, government agencies, and biotech & pharmaceutical companies both locally and around the world.

With the support of a generous donation by Henry H. “Sam” Wheeler, Jr. The mission of CEND is to help the University of California, Berkeley make innovative and substantial contributions to the global response to emerging and neglected infectious diseases. We at CEND believe that by educating potential innovators, connecting researchers from diverse disciplines, and investing in research, we can help the best and brightest minds at UC Berkeley access the resources they need to make meaningful and innovative contributions to our scientific understanding and ability to combat emerging and neglected diseases.