Henry Wheeler Center for Emerging and Neglected Diseases

Annual CEND Symposium & Research Competition
"Global Epidemic: What's Driving Delivery in HIV & TB?"
Thursday December 10th, 2009 - 10:00 am
Stanley Hall Auditorium, UC Berkeley


UC Berkeley Technology Leads to Breakthrough Vaccine
Watch video of the broadcast on KTVU News


Photo: Peg Skorpinski

The Henry Wheeler Center for Emerging and Neglected Diseases (CEND) at the University of California, Berkeley is a cross-campus, multidisciplinary partnership which seeks to accelerate the innovation of new drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics for diseases that primarily or disproportionately afflict people in developing countries. We combine unparalleled resources for cutting edge science with international research partnerships and world experts in policy, law, and global health economics.

Stories of Discovery

Jay Keasling

Malaria is one of the world's most threatening diseases, infecting 300-500 million people annually. Of the more than one million people who die each year from the disease, 70 per cent are children under the age of five. Yet effective treatment remains expensive and out of reach for the majority of the people affected by the disease. Using synthetic biology, CEND investigator Jay Keasling has engineered microorganisms to cheaply and effectively produce large quantities of artemisinic acid, a precursor to artemisinin, the drug proven most effective in fighting malaria. Read more...

Announcements

Obama announces new focus on neglected tropical diseases
USAID's neglected tropical disease (NTD) control program began in 2006, in response to a Congressional earmark of $15 million per year. The program represents one of the first global efforts to integrate existing disease-specific treatment programs to control diseases. On May 5, 2009, President Obama announced a new comprehensive global health strategy, which includes a focus on NTDs, to address some of the world's biggest health challenges. To provide information about the initiative, USAID's Bureau for Global Health recently launched a new NTD Initiative Web site.

Visit www.NeglectedDiseases.gov

CEND Investigators improve vaccines to trigger T cell as well as antibody response
Professors Dan Portnoy and Russell Vance are using listeria to stimulate immune responses to intracellular pathogens, and enable safer vaccines.

UC Berkeley's Travis Porco finds that distribution of antibiotic for eye disease is linked to low death risk among Ethiopian children
Children in Ethiopia who received the antibiotic azithromycin as a method for controlling the contagious eye disease trachoma had a lower odds of death compared to children who did not receive the antibiotic.