International Traineeships in AIDS Prevention Studies

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The International Traineeships in AIDS Prevention Studies Program (ITAPS) attracts trains and advances the careers of developing country scientists in HIV prevention research. ITAPS is one of three distinct training programs at the NIMH-funded Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) and the primary training program of the CAPS International Core. Over the past 18 years, we have developed a unique, innovative and highly productive program in which a multidisciplinary group of visiting scholars comes to CAPS to participate in a 10- week Basic HIV Prevention Research Methods Training Program. Trainees focus on developing a behavioral or epidemiologic pilot research protocol for implementation in their home countries. Subsequently, we provide 8-week Scientific Writing Workshops for scholars who have completed data collection to write a scientific manuscript. To date, we have trained 150 visiting scholars from 39 countries. The research of our alumni has been broadly disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and at scientific conferences, and many alumni have taken public health and academic leadership positions in their home countries. We propose to build upon our existing program and introduce an innovative new training initiative to assist our most successful program alumni in securing independent research funding from the NIH. We will (1) continue to offer our basic research method course and scientific writing workshops; (2) create a new 10-month advanced research training course for our most successful alumni with a focus on producing fundable R-series or other grant proposals, and (3) continue to provide ongoing technical assistance to all program alumni with active research projects, scientific manuscripts and conference presentations. Specifically, we propose to host groups of ten scholars each in Years 01 and 04 who will attend our basic HIV prevention research methods course, and develop pilot research protocols for implementation in their home countries. In Years 02, 03 and 05, we will host groups of ten scholars each for scientific writing workshops. Finally we will recruit two highly promising visiting scholars per year for a 10-month advanced research training course focused on further study in research methods and grant development. The CAPS Center Grant (2006-11) is funded as a P-30 and provides infrastructure to support international research conducted by faculty, but does not provide funding for the ITAPS program. As in our current grant cycle, ITAPS has secured funding from other sources to cover travel and living expenses for short-term visiting scholars at CAPS. However, these sources specifically disallow use of funds to support faculty and administrative costs. In this application, we seek funds for faculty and administrative staff required for planning and teaching the ITAPS program, and providing ongoing mentoring and technical support of scholars. We also seek funding for travel and living expenses for two 10-month Advanced Research Traineeships in each grant year. The majority of the world's new cases of HIV and AIDS are in the developing world. The goal of this project is to raise the capacity of developing country scientists to conduct AIDS prevention research studies in their home countries. We will accomplish this goal by providing short-term training in research methods and scientific writing for developing country scientists at the University of California, San Francisco.