Bay Area Virus Network

The Bay Area Virus Network (BayViro) was launched in 2012 by the Henry Wheeler Center for Emerging and Neglected Diseases (CEND) at UC Berkeley. BayViro represents a constellation of scientists, engineers, and clinician researchers in the San Francisco Bay Area who are working to understand, prevent, and control human and animal viral infections. It is a platform for connecting investigators at universities, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and research institutes throughout the region. The SF Bay Area offers a unique ecology for virus research, with its long tradition of innovation. Our diverse community of investigators is led by distinguished scientists like Jay Levy at UCSF, who co-discovered the AIDS virus in 1983, and Edward Penhoet at UC Berkeley, who discovered the Hepatitis C virus and went on to found Chiron (which developed the first vaccine against Hepatitis B).

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the need for better integration of science and policy in a sharp focus. The 13th Annual CEND Symposium "Rapid innovation in a highly regulated space - what can we learn from COVID-19 for pandemic preparedness?" aimed to provide a forum for interdisciplinary thought exchange and development of ideas about how to best harness academic innovation and reserve capacity, and how to develop regulatory frameworks in times of crisis.

This two-day conference featured lectures from thought leaders in drug development, health policy, and other relevant fields, as well as workshops to develop tangible ideas for publication in a conference report.


Videos from the 13th Annual CEND Symposium are available on CEND's Youtube channel.