The UCSD CFAR has been in existence since 1994. It serves investigators at UCSD and three participating institutions: the Veterans Medical Research Foundation of the San Diego VA Healthcare System, the Salk Institute and the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology. The CFAR has significantly enhanced HIV/AIDS activities at the participating institutions and the San Diego Community in general by 1) encouraging young faculty and investigators new to mV/AIDS research through Developmental Grant Awards. 2) Providing expert advice and services in a number of specialized research areas through the CFAR Core Program and 3) fostering research interactions and community wide education through its programs in mentoring, training, education and outreach. The proposed CFAR consists of six cores: Developmental, Molecular Biology, Flow Cytometry (including the Immune Response sub-core), Genomics, Virology and Clinical Investigation. These cores are directly responsible to the Directors and the Executive Committee. Center membership is composed of the 180 faculty spanning 20 Departments in UCSD and the Center's participating institutions. The management of the Center is assisted by the Executive Committee, comprised of six investigators from UCSD and our collaborating institutions who are not directly funded by the CFAR: Bruce Torbett (The Scripps Research Institute), Ned Landau (Infectious Diseases, The Salk Institute), Carl Ware (The La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, LJIAI), Igor Grant (UCSD, HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center), Allen McCutchan (UCSD, NeuroAIDS), Sam Bozzette (UCSD, Health Services) and Josh Refer (Infectious Diseases, VA Medical Center, VAMC). In addition, our External Advisory Committee meets annually to monitor the scientific direction and growth of the CFAR as well as reviewing and evaluating individual core performance. The Committee offers feedback on our performance in achieving our milestones and aids in the formulation of new directions. The EAC is comprised of a group of internationally renowned AIDS investigators: Ron Desrosiers, David Ho, King Holmes, Eric Hunter, Gary Nabel and Mario Stevenson. Both committees provide us with the opportunity to draw upon and integrate their knowledge and advice, providing objective management decisions and helping guide the Center in new, productive directions. In the past year, several significant improvements have been incorporated into the program. These include a more formal and transparent administrative process of review and decision making, an enhanced Developmental Core, restructuring the CFAR membership into Program Areas to foster more collaboration and interaction and increased efforts in community education and outreach. These improvements are already enhancing the community wide HIV/AIDS activities by our already highly productive and useful CFAR.
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