UC Berkeley's Center for Emerging and Neglected Diseases Enables Launch of 19 Innovative Projects through Covid Catalyst Funding

    BERKELEY, CA, May 15, 2020 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The first 19 teams were awarded seed funding for potentially high-impact projects during the current Covid-19 pandemic through the Covid Catalyst fund at UC Berkeley's Center for Emerging and Neglected Diseases. Open to investigators within the Bay Area Virus Network, including UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UCSF, UC Santa Cruz and Stanford, the funds will have an immediate impact on kick-starting projects that could reshape the trajectory of the Covid-19 pandemic this summer and beyond. Funding will allow investigators to begin work immediately, while applications for slow-to-arrive federal funding are being reviewed. As one investigator writes - "Thank you for believing in us and providing this badly needed support. We have a skeleton crew working during the shutdown as part of the UCSF COVID-19 response team so we will be able to use the funds immediately."

Covid Catalyst funded projects include clinically relevant studies of outcomes in vulnerable populations, point of care diagnostics, projects focused on improving existing drugs for Covid-19 such as remdesivir, and finding novel approaches to repurpose existing medications and discover new medicines.

The full list of funded projects can be found here.

The Henry Wheeler Center for Emerging & Neglected Diseases (CEND) was established as a multi-disciplinary research unit in 2008, 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.

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