The current UCSD CFAR is a component of the AID Research Institute, an Organized Research Unit in the University of California System. We propose to expand the CFAR into a regional, comprehensive AIDS Research Center, with participating members drawn from UCSD and neighboring institutions including the Salk Institute, Scripps Research Foundation, the Burnham Cancer Research Foundation, and the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology. Dr. Flossie Wong-Staal and Dr. Douglas Richman will continue to serve as the Director and Co-director of the new Center. Their cooperation and complementary areas of expertise should strengthen the interaction of basic and clinical AIDS research as well as ensuring a continuation in leadership. The central mission of the new CFAR is to develop improved vaccines and therapies for HIV infection and associated disease through: (i) Basic Research in the areas of molecular pathogenesis and immunopathogenesis of HIV infection; (ii) Utilization of insights from basic research to develop pre-clinical and clinical trials of therapies and vaccines; (iii) Further clinical research to address fundamental scientific and practical medical issues; (iv) Providing leadership and serving as a regional resource to coordinate, stimulate and cross- fertilize all of the above to foster synergism, economies of scale and novel and creative approaches. The new CFAR will have a greatly strengthened Administrative Core to effectively coordinate the diverse activities of the Center. The Developmental Core will also be expanded in accordance with the growth in participating membership from neighboring institutions. A number of new cores will be established to keep pace with current needs and research activities on HIV. The proposed cores include five basic sciences cores: Molecular Biology, Virology, Flow Cytometry, Gene Therapy and Signal Transduction/Apoptosis and four clinical cores: Clinical Data and Outcomes, Clinical Investigation, Behavioral and Health Function and Primary Isolation and Specimen Banking. In addition, we will have access to a number of core facilities at different sites that are not directly funded by CFAR. A set of policies and procedures has been established to evaluate the performance of each core and to guide decisions in funding reallocation.
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