Dr. Torsten Wiesel, President of the Rockefeller University (RU), and Dr. Herbert Pardes, Dean of the Medical Faculty of Columbia University (CU), jointly propose the establishment of the Columbia-Rockefeller Center for AIDS Research (CR-CFAR), an administrative structure bridging AIDS investigators from our two Universities located in the City of New York. The CR-CFAR will be governed by a series of by-laws overseen by Drs. David Ho (Director, Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, RU) and Jeremy Luban (Chief, Division of Molecular Virology, CU), and by an Executive Steering Committee consisting of Drs. Yuan Chang, Leonard Chess, Anke Ehrhardt, Stephen Goff, Wayne Hendrickson, Martin Markowitz, Preston Marx, John Moore, and Ralph Steinman. The CR-CFAR membership will be comprised of over 70 investigators drawn from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (RU), the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at the New York State Psychiatric Institute (CU), the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) at the RU Hospital, the Columbia University Pediatric and Adult ACTUs, seen clinical departments at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and at the Harlem Hospital Medical Center (CU), ten departments of basic science at CU and RU, as well as the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (RU). Two goals unify all CR-CFAR participants. The fist goal is to understand more about the mechanism of HIV replication, transmission, and pathogenesis, with studies ranging from atomic resolution of viral protein structure to the psycho-social dynamics of the inner city community. The second goal is to integrate this information into programs developing anti-viral therapeutics and vaccines, and community outreach and information into programs developing anti-viral therapeutics and vaccines, and community outreach and behavioral intervention strategies. By supporting seven modifiable core facilities (Administration, Development, Virology, Immunology, Clinical Resources, Structural Biology, and Primate Biology), the CR-CFAR will promote three major objectives: 1) to enhance the outstanding research programs that are already in place by providing,, or simply rendering more accessible, shared research facilities; 2) to help recruit junior faculty to our programs and to our institutions, and to encourage established investigators from within the ranks of our faculty to develop research programs in AIDS-related topics; and 3) to promote dialogue leading to new productive collaborations involving CR-CFAR members.
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