Existing immunotherapies transformed cancer care, but they do not work for every cancer, and the cancers they fail leave patients with the fewest options and the least time. CURED is going upstream, asking why the immune system sometimes fails to recognize and destroy cancer, and harnessing foundational immunology to uncover the shared principles of immune activation and suppression. By targeting the mechanisms many cancers have in common rather than the vulnerabilities of any single one, we are developing approaches with the potential to treat dozens of cancer types with one or a few therapies.

Autoimmune and inflammatory diseases are rising faster than almost any other disease category, disproportionately affect women, and remain without cures. We do not yet fully understand how immune tolerance breaks down or why inflammatory circuits misfire, and until we do, existing treatments can only manage symptoms rather than correct the underlying malfunction. CURED is building the science to change that, mapping the genetic pathways that drive autoimmunity, using AI and protein engineering to identify where those pathways can be rewired, and developing ways to restore tolerance at its source. The aim is not better management but durable cures.

Rare diseases affect an estimated thirty million Americans; most are genetic, chronic, and severe, and most lack an effective treatment. Thousands will never see a dedicated therapy, not because the science is too hard, but because the market is too small. Rather than tackling them one at a time, CURED is finding the shared biological mechanisms that connect them, many of which trace back to defects in immune regulation, so that a single discovery can unlock treatments across dozens of conditions at once. As a public research university, we can pursue the shared science that turns thousands of intractable diseases into a solvable problem.

The next pandemic will emerge where human and animal life collide. CURED researchers are already there, working in East Africa, Southeast Asia, Madagascar, and Latin America to understand how primates and bats carry viruses without becoming ill, and what those answers mean for human medicine. We are also decoding the pathogens that have defeated conventional medicine for decades, including HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and drug-resistant infections, with the deep laboratory science Berkeley is built to do. And through CURED CORPS, we train scientists in the regions where these threats emerge as full research partners, building local capacity that will outlast any single outbreak.