This Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) proposal represents a collaboration between faculty at Brown University and Tufts University. The broad goals of this CFAR are 1) to stimulate translational AIDS research with women, minorities and other underrepresented groups; 2) to enhance research in prevention science; 3) to integrate nutritional assessment/intervention and outcomes analysis into clinical research; 4) to encourage multidisciplinary research on the clinical issues surrounding new therapies and the accompanying extended survival of HIV-seropositive patients; and 5) to explore effective screening, treatment and prevention of viral-induced carcinomas in AIDS patients. The cores established for this CFAR include Administration, Development, Immunovirology (basic research), AIDS-Related Malignancies (basic research), Women and AIDS (clinical research), Prevention Science and Education (clinical research), Nutrition and GI (clinical research) and Outcomes of Biostatistics (clinical research). The Developmental Core will support pilot projects in promising new areas of HIV research; studies by investigators new to the HIV/AIDS field, and collaborative multi-disciplinary research projects. The CFAR will support the establishment of two basic research cores which will provide a variety of new assays and procedures and which will coordinate access to other existing service facilities. This will include a laboratory supporting research on early screening for patients at high risk for human papillomavirus-induced carcinomas. CFAR funding to the Women and AIDS Core, the Prevention Science and Education Core and the Nutrition and GI Core will coordinate research with three clinical cohorts largely composed of women, minorities and other groups underrepresented in clinical AIDS research. Finally the CFAR will support the application of health-related quality of life research to existing clinical cohorts and clinical research projects. First year milestones for the CFAR include 1) development of initial data on predictive value of serological studies on development and progression of cervical dysplasia in HIV-seropositive and control populations; 2) description of the correlation between plasma and genital tract HIV RNA in patients receiving antiviral therapy; 3) Publication/initial description of definition of B and E clade HIV-1 epidemiology in Metro Manilla, Philippines; and 4) Publication of initial findings of body composition changes in patients on antiretroviral therapy along with initial recommendations for effective gain of lean muscle mass.
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