The Division of AIDS (DAIDS), NIAID supports research to identify therapeutic agents for the prevention and treatment of infections with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and opportunistic pathogens associated with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) including Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Lead compounds are identified through individual research grants as well as DAIDS-sponsored programs for novel HIV therapies and the AIDS-associated opportunistic infections (OIs). Databases containing chemical structures and biological data have been established by the Division of AIDS (DAIDS) to track development of chemotherapies of HIV and OIs and to serve as a knowledge base for the NIAID and scientific community. The current databases are the most up-to-date information source available on current research on experimental therapies for HIV and opportunistic infections. The contract provides high level of professional and administrative capabilities in order to: provide scientific expertise (chemistry, virology, immunology, microbiology) for literature surveillance, data retrieval and quality control, and to recommend enhancements, which allow for changes and improvements in the transfer and/or retrieval of data. The databases provide support for the acquisition of new chemicals for biological evaluation in contracts sponsored by DAIDS. Currently DAIDS maintains six data bases which contain chemical and biological information on: 1) anti-HIV therapeutic agents 2) agents tested for activity against opportunistic pathogens 3) M. tuberculosis 4) WEB site HIV chemical/biological database 5) virucidal database and 6) literature citations on relevant AIDS therapies. It is expected during the course of this contract that the DAIDS will make all nonconfidential aspects of these files public. The anti-HIV and anti-OI databases currently are managed using ISISTM/Base and ISIS/Host (AIX) software (MDL Information Systems, Inc., San Leandro, CA), and ORACLE for data tables, ISISHOST and ORACLE version 7.3.4 hosted on Silicon Graphics Origin 200 system, the literature citations database is managed using PROCITETM software version 4.1(Personal Bibliographic Software, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI).
