The Center for Discovery and Innovation in Parasitic Diseases (CDIPD) is an interdisciplinary research center based at UC San Diego. CDIPD targets diseases affecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide, but which are largely ignored by traditional drug and vaccine discovery companies because they primarily affect the poor and underserved.

CDIPD was inaugurated as the Tropical Disease Research Unit at UC San Francisco in 1985. This TDRU was supported by the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and focused on drug development, targeting a protease of Trypanosoma cruzi. The interdisciplinary science that now characterizes the Center grew from this initial effort. Members of the TDRU included chemists, computational scientists, structural biologists, biochemists, and parasitologists.

In 2002, Herb and Marion Sandler made a groundbreaking gift to the University of California to expand the TDRU into the Sandler Center for Basic Research in Parasitic Diseases. This now allowed the interdisciplinary research group to branch into several other parasitic diseases of global health importance. By 2009, the focus of this research team became the discovery and development of drugs for several neglected parasitic diseases. The Sandler Center became the Sandler Center for Drug Discovery.

The transition in 2012 to the Center for Discovery and Innovation in Parasitic Diseases (CDIPD) reflected a broader interdisciplinary research effort that now includes not only drug discovery and development, but also vaccine development. Begining July 2014, CDIPD is administered at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, UC San Diego.

Official CDIPD logo in a variety of formats can be found here