The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), along with five other NIH Institutes, has awarded more than $13 million for first-year funding for 12 Centers for AIDS Research (CFARs) across the United States.

The grants will provide three to five years of continued support for the Centers, which are based at leading AIDS research institutions around the country. CFARs provide a pool of shared resources - such as technical expertise, equipment and training - that is made available to local AIDS researchers. The Centers also advance AIDS research by facilitating interdisciplinary and international collaborations, technology transfer through academic-industry collaborations, research dissemination activities and promoting community outreach.

"HIV research requires expertise in multiple scientific fields and increasingly sophisticated procedures, so the integrated Center approach is an excellent way to achieve this goal," says NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.

First funded in 1988, the CFAR program has sponsored many exciting advances in AIDS research, including identification of new co-receptors for HIV, the role of cytotoxic

T-lymphocytes in early infection and in controlling virus replication, and the use of antiretroviral drugs as probes to understand the dynamics of HIV replication. The program also has developed centralized research laboratories with state-of-the-art facilities and techniques, such as flow cytometry and DNA sequencing equipment, and made these available to all AIDS researchers in that community.

The CFARs also are committed to addressing concerns of minority communities, where AIDS is of particular concern. The Centers explore ways to increase the number of minority scientists involved in AIDS research and to deal with problems related to enrollment and retention of women and minorities in AIDS clinical trials.

A new feature of the awards is that they will be funded jointly by NIAID and five other NIH Institutes: the National Cancer Institute; the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; the National Institute on Drug Abuse; and the National Institute of Mental Health. For the first year, these institutes will contribute $7,030,000 and NIAID will pay $6,445,363, for a total of $13,475,362.

Of the twelve newly funded CFARs, six are renewals (indicated by asterisks below) and six are new grantees.

The awardees, with participating institutions and principal investigators, are:

ALABAMA

• University of Alabama at Birmingham - Eric Hunter, Ph.D.*

CALIFORNIA

• University of California at Los Angeles - Irvin Chen, M.D.*
• University of California at San Diego with the Scripps Research Foundation, Burnham Cancer Research Foundation, and La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology - Flossie Wong-Staal, M.D.*
• University of California at San Francisco - Paul Volberding, M.D.*

GEORGIA

• Emory University, Atlanta, with the AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta, Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center and Atlanta VA Medical Center - James Curran, M.D., M.P.H.

ILLINOIS

• Great Lakes CFAR, a collaboration of Northwestern University, Chicago, with the University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin and University of Michigan - Steven Wolinsky, M.D.

MASSACHUSETTS

• University of Massachusetts Medical Center - Mario Stevenson, Ph.D.

NEW YORK

• Columbia and Rockefeller Universities, New York City, with the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute - David Ho, M.D.

NORTH CAROLINA

• University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, with Research Triangle Institute and Family Health International - Ronald Swanstrom, M.D.

OHIO

• Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland - Stuart LeGrice, M.D.*

RHODE ISLAND

• Miriam Hospital, Providence, with Brown University, Tufts University (Boston, Mass.), the New England Medical Center and Memorial Hospital of New England - Charles Carpenter, M.D.

WASHINGTON

• University of Washington at Seattle with the Harbor View Medical Center and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center - King Holmes, M.D.*

These 12 newly funded sites are in addition to five ongoing CFARs at the following locations:

• Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, N.Y. - Arye Rubinstein, M.D.
• Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas - Janet Butel, M.D.
• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Mass. - Joseph Sodroski, M.D.
• Duke University, Durham, N.C. - Dani Bolognesi, M.D.
• New York University, N.Y. - Fred Valentine, M.D.

NIAID is a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIAID conducts and supports research to prevent, diagnose and treat illnesses such as HIV disease and other sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis, malaria, asthma and allergies. NIH is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Press releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the Internet via the NIAID web site at http://www.niaid.nih.gov.