CURED: Cultivate Grant Program

CURED

Request for Applications 2026 | University of California, Berkeley

Program Overview

The Center for Unmet, Rare, and Emerging Diseases (CURED) invites applications for the inaugural CURED: Cultivate Grant Program. This program funds research projects led by a UC Berkeley faculty member working in one of the CURED priority areas: cancer, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, rare diseases, and infectious diseases and global health.

These grants are intended to catalyze new or existing research aligned with CURED’s mission. CURED pursues mechanism-first, discovery-oriented biology: fundamental research into why serious diseases occur, how they progress, and what it would take to stop or reverse them. We work on diseases that go unsolved not because the science is impossible but because the incentives are not there, and on patients who have the most to gain from a fundamental breakthrough. CURED: Cultivate grants support that work when investment is high-risk but potentially high-reward.

Grant applications are due November 20th at 5 pm PT.

Awards

  • Award amount: $50,000 per award
  • Number of awards: Two
  • Project period: 18 months, with an optional no cost extension of up to 6 months available upon written request with justification, submitted before the original end date
  • Funding: Funds may support the research team, including graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, as well as direct project costs. See the Expense Guidelines section below.

Eligibility

  • UC Berkeley faculty. The applicant must hold a full-time faculty appointment at UC Berkeley and will serve as the Principal Investigator. A single faculty PI is sufficient. No student or co-investigator partnership is required.
  • A CURED Affiliate. All PIs applying for this award must be CURED affiliates. Please email cured@berkeley.edu if you would like to become a CURED affiliate.
  • Biology and immunology. Immunology is a unifying scientific thread across the four pillars. Each project must have an element of this approach, but may include other approaches as well. 
  • Working in a CURED priority area. The proposed project must fall within one of the CURED priority areas listed below.
  • Limited to one application per cycle. A faculty member may appear as PI on only one application per grant cycle. The same faculty member may PI one grant and act as supporting personnel on another.

Postdoctoral researchers, staff scientists, project scientists, graduate students, and visiting scholars may contribute to a project and may be supported by the award, but may not serve as PI. Collaborators from other institutions may participate; see the External Partner Letter of Support requirement below.

Program Priorities

All applications must demonstrate alignment with the CURED mission and address at least one of the four CURED priority areas.

The Center for Unmet, Rare, and Emerging Diseases (CURED) pursues systematic solutions for deprioritized diseases, led by immunology. Many of the world’s most devastating diseases lack cures because neither the fundamental science nor the market incentives are in place, and CURED addresses this through discovery-oriented research that yields transformative biological insights directed toward social good. Its four pillars are cancer, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, rare diseases, and infectious diseases and global health, united by the immune system’s centrality to all four: a discovery in one may unlock treatments across the others.

Encouraged but not required

  • Multidisciplinary collaboration. Projects that bring together expertise across disciplines, departments, or schools. Projects that deliberately work across pillars are encouraged.
  • Use of Berkeley technology platforms. Projects that draw on capabilities at partner centers such as the Innovative Genomics Institute, the Molecular Therapeutics Initiative, or the Stem Cell Center, or on Berkeley translational infrastructure including the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub, SkyDeck, and the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology are encouraged but not required.
  • International collaboration. Projects that involve partnerships with institutions outside the United States, particularly in lower- and middle-income countries are supported but not required. If your project includes an international partner, you must have an existing mechanism to transfer funds and monitor their implementation. CURED is unable to take on the administrative work of setting up a new relationship. 
  • Trainee involvement. Projects that create substantive research opportunities for graduate students or postdoctoral researchers are encouraged but not required

Application Components

Applications will be submitted via Google Forms and must include the following sections. Maximum length is in parentheses. The total application narrative should not exceed four pages, excluding budget, references, and biosketches.

1. Existing Research Portfolio (one half page)

  • Describe the research this project builds on.
  • What work have the PI and the research team already done in this area?
  • What capabilities, datasets, samples, models, or partnerships are already in place that this project will draw on?

2. Proposed Project (1 to 1.5 pages)

  • Describe the proposed research. Include the question, approach, methods, and a brief timeline. Be specific about what will be accomplished within 18 months.
  • Include a timeline of when major activities will occur throughout the project.
  • What will these funds allow the team to do that they could not otherwise do? Be specific. Reviewers want to understand the genuine difference this funding will make.
  • What are the concrete outcomes you expect from this project, for example publications, preliminary data, grant submissions, partnerships, or products?
  • What is the anticipated impact of this work on the field, on affected populations, or on the broader research community?

3. Team and Trainee Involvement (one half page)

  • Identify who will carry out the work and describe their role on the project.
  • If graduate students or postdoctoral researchers are involved, describe how the project will support their research training and professional development.
  • Describe any collaborators, internal or external, and what each contributes.

4. Concise Budget and Justification (1 page)

  • Provide a budget showing major expected expense categories, with brief justification for each line.
  • See the Expense Guidelines section below for what may and may not be charged to the award.

5. CURED Mission Alignment (one half page)

  • Identify which CURED pillar(s) the project addresses.
  • Describe how the project advances the CURED’s mission.
  • Projects that do not fall within a CURED pillar or align with CURED’s mission will not be reviewed.

6. CV or Biosketch

  • NIH format biosketch or CV for the PI. Not counted toward the page limit.

7. Partner Letter of Support

  • If your application includes a collaboration with a department outside of the PIs, or an organization outside of Berkeley, please include a brief, signed statement from the partner to confirm they are an active participant and will support the outlined activities.

Expense Guidelines

All expenses must be consistent with UC Berkeley policy and the approved budget.

Allowable expenses (examples)

  • Salary support for non-faculty research personnel tied to project work, including Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) appointments and postdoctoral researcher effort
  • Research supplies, reagents, and consumables
  • Core facility and shared equipment fees, for example sequencing, imaging, screening, and computing
  • Software licenses and computational resources required for the project
  • Data collection costs, including participant incentives, survey platforms, and transcription
  • IRB and IACUC fees, biosample acquisition and shipping including international cold chain, and biobank or specimen repository access fees
  • Fieldwork travel and lodging at project sites away from the home institution
  • Research exchange travel and lodging, for example to a partner institution
  • Conference travel to present project results, one conference maximum
  • Publication and open access fees for project related manuscripts
  • Project specific training, such as short courses or workshops directly tied to project methods
  • Allocating funds to an external or international research partner to support co-implemented research, or research in which the Berkeley team is participating. Awardees are responsible for identifying a route for payment transfer and funding oversight.

Not allowable

  • Faculty salary, including summer salary
  • Living expenses while at Berkeley, allowable only during research exchange or fieldwork travel
  • General salary or stipend supplements not tied to project work
  • Personal equipment such as laptops and phones, unless project specific and designated as belonging to Berkeley
  • Indirect costs
  • Costs not-allowable under Berkeley policy

Awardee Requirements

By accepting an award, you agree to the following:

  • Work plan and budget. Maintain an up-to-date work plan and budget. The original draft is submitted with the application. Any major adjustments should be submitted to CURED for approval.
  • Check ins. Awardee will attend a 30-minute check in within a month of the award and every 4 months thereafter, to ensure the project is moving forward and to identify any changes or support needed to complete the project.
  • CURED BlueSky presentations. Awardees present twice at CURED BlueSky: a project plan talk in June 2027, roughly four months into the award, and a results talk in June 2028, near the end of the project period. Exact dates will be set with awardees after the award is made.
  • Engagement with CURED. Awardees are encouraged to participate in CURED events throughout the year, including the CURED BlueSky series.
  • Branding and acknowledgment. Please acknowledge CURED support in outputs related to this funding, for example: “Funded by the Center for Unmet, Rare, and Emerging Diseases at UC Berkeley.” We will share our logo. Awardees also acknowledge that CURED will share information about their grant online, on social media, and other public spaces.

End of award close out package

All awardees deliver the following at the end of the award period:

  • A brief report summarizing project outcomes, resulting or planned publications, subsequent funding pursued or secured to support expanded or extended projects, and other outcomes such as intellectual property, policy changes, or ongoing collaboration. A brief additional progress report covering the same elements is required one year after project completion.
  • One blog post with photos suitable for the CURED website and communications channels about the experience and the research. CURED staff can provide support.

Review Process

Applications will be reviewed by CURED Faculty Director and Pillar Leads.

Reviewers will score applications using the following criteria:

  • Alignment with the CURED mission and priority areas. Does the project advance CURED’s mission, and does it fall clearly within one of the four priority areas?
  • Quality and feasibility of the proposed work. Are the problems and questions important? Do the methods align with the research question? Can the work be completed in 18 months with the proposed budget?
  • Potential impact. Has the application identified the anticipated impact of the project on the field, on patients, or on affected populations?
  • Additive value. Does CURED: Cultivate funding enable something new that will contribute to the scientific knowledge base of at least one pillar?

Submission and Timeline

MilestoneDate
RFA releasedThursday, October 15, 2026
Optional information session 1 (drop-in online office hours, recorded and posted to the CURED website)Thursday, October 22, 2026, 1:00 PM | Zoom
Optional information session 2Thursday, November 5, 2026, 1:00 PM | Zoom
Application deadlineThursday, November 19, 2026, 5:00 PM (PT)
Awardees informedFriday, December 18, 2026
Funding start dateMonday, February 1, 2027
CURED BlueSky presentation 1 (project plan)June 24 2027, 4 pm
CURED BlueSky presentation 2 (results)June 2028, date to be set with awardees
No cost extension request dueFriday, June 30, 2028
Funding end dateMonday, July 31, 2028
Close out package dueFriday, September 29, 2028

Applications should be submitted through the online application form by 5:00 PM (PT) on Thursday, November 19, 2026.

Application link:

Apply Here

Questions

For questions about the RFA, eligibility, or the submission process, please attend one of the information sessions listed above. If you are unable to attend, please email cured@berkeley.edu.

Center for Unmet, Rare, and Emerging Diseases  (CURED)

University of California, Berkeley 

344 Li Ka Shing Center, Berkeley, CA 94720