AIDS INFRASTRUCTURE: HIV & HCV EPIDEMIOLGY: DRUG RESISTANCE: PUERTO RICO

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The phase 2 RCMI AIDS research program at the Ponce School of Medicine will be organized in a form of a "program project" where a number of interacting research projects will be coordinated through a central coordinating office and core support. An additional area of infrastructure development will be "faculty development program" which include further development of Puerto Rico AIDS Collaborative Network into a pre-center cluster through which an application for the Puerto Rico Center for Aids Research may be developed in 5-6 years. Development of the pre-center cluster shall be coordinated by an Advisory Board chaired by Eric Goosby, M.D. (Director, HRSA HIV Services) which includes 5 other nationally and internationally renown AIDS investigators of various disciplines such as Molecular Biology, Infectious Diseases, epidemiology, Women-Infants issues and also substance Abuse Research. Development of Semi-Annual RCMI AIDS/HIV Workshop is also proposed as a part of the faculty development program. The workshops will create the forum of active idea and technical exchanges among RCMI AIDS investigators and the timing of a workshop annually will coincide with the time of advisory board meeting, so that two board members, on an alternative basis, may lead discussions on timely "hot topics" related to their areas of expertise. As suggested by NIAID-DAIDS reviewers two half time physicians have been recruited to develop Clinical AIDS Research Activity and Education and Training program, respectively, with the time table of approximately 3-4 years. New clinical research faculty recruitment will continue and proposals for K11 "Physician Scientist Award" are expected to emerge within 3-4 years. Appointment of the new President/Dean for PSM, who himself is a devoted AIDS investigator, provided the needed stimuli. Some other examples of projected phase-2 developments are: (1) construction grant for specialized AIDS research facility has been applied and is currently pending; (2) upgrading of the flow cytometry laboratory is proposed which includes the acquisition by RCMI support of a cell sorter, FACSsort; (3) molecular biology core; (4) molecular genetics core; (5) epidemiology and biostatistics core and (6) substance abuse research infrastructure. A CPCRA proposal was submitted and reached the final level of the competition even though it was not funded. An application for ACTG was urged for us and we will be inquiring whether or not another "preparation grant" may be considered. Three pilot AIDS research projects are included in this application for funding through RCMI program and several others will be applied for funding from other sources, e.g. R01 & R29.