Tennessee Center for AIDS Research (TN-CFAR)

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Overall – PROJECT SUMMARY Decades of research have generated knowledge and tools with the potential to prevent all new HIV infections, to ultimately end the HIV epidemic in the United States and worldwide, and to improve the lives of people living with HIV. To date, reality has fallen short of these goals, in part due to pressing unmet needs. The Tennessee Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) is located in the Southeastern United States, the region with the greatest number of new HIV infections, and of persons living with HIV. This CFAR was established in 2015, under the leadership of Prof. Simon Mallal, as a three-way partnership between a research-intensive medical institution (Vanderbilt University Medical Center, VUMC), a historically black medical college (Meharry Medical College, MMC), and an academically engaged state health department (Tennessee Department of Health, TDH). This partnership has fostered collaborations that would be unimaginable without CFAR. For example, results of an analysis by VUMC and MMC investigators using TDH surveillance data has affected statewide public policy and law regarding needle exchange, reducing the likelihood of a potentially devastating HIV outbreak in rural Tennessee. To end the epidemic, it is becoming increasingly important to pursue community-engaged research, to include both people living with HIV and those at high risk. Toward this end, this CFAR has newly partnered with a fourth institution, Nashville CARES, a sophisticated community-based organization with a 25-year exclusive focus on people living with HIV and those at high risk. Through this four-way partnership, our vision is to have transformative, local and global translational impact. Guided by this vision, our mission is to coordinate the complementary institutional and community strengths and resources of VUMC, MMC, TDH and CARES to most effectively reduce the burden of HIV/AIDS and generalize these benefits nationally and globally. Work of this CFAR aligns with National Institutes of Health high priorities for NIH/AIDS research. To fulfill our mission, this CFAR will pursue four specific aims: 1) To support multidisciplinary HIV research that leverages the highly collaborative local environment to build impactful team science among the four institutions of the CFAR; 2) To nurture and support career development of junior investigators, so as to grow the number and diversity of the next generation of HIV researchers; 3) To specifically enable HIV research opportunities for MMC investigators, to include engagement with investigators and resources across the CFAR, and leveraging team science; and 4) To continue to grow a broad emphasis on HIV-focused community-engaged research that pervades the CFAR, and with a focus on ending the epidemic.