AIDS Foundation Initiates Funding For TB Research

Since its founding in 1985, the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR) has become well known among biomedical scientists as a funding agency dedicated to seeding research relevant to HIV/AIDS. In recent months the foundation--which has major divisions in New York and Los Angeles and a public policy office in Washington, D.C.--has launched an initiative to fund research and education related to tuberculosis, as well. TB, again becoming a major threat to public health, is "one more opportunistic infection" that contributes to the fatalities of AIDS patients, says Craig A. Rosen, the department chairman for gene regulation at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in Nutley, N.J., and head of AmFAR's Scientific Advisory Committee. Bernard A. Dempsey, Jr., AmFAR's grants officer in Los Angeles, says that the foundation is currently preparing a request for proposals focusing on diagnostic tests and studies of multi-drug-resistant strains of TB. He says that $300,000 in grant money will be made available through this new TB program. The TB research effort represents the latest example of AmFAR's mission to act as a "catalyst" to get new AIDS-related research "off the ground" and "stop the virus in its track," according to the foundation's president, Mervyn F. Silverman, a physician who holds faculty positions at the University of California, San Francisco, and Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans. Since its creation, AmFAR has awarded more than $44 million to approximately 680 projects. Am-FAR's annual revenues have grown from $2.3 million in 1985 to more than $17 million. Private contributions fuel AmFAR's efforts, which are spread among laboratory and clinical research as well as public policy and education initiatives. From its budget for fiscal year 1991-92, the foundation has given more than $9 million in AIDS-related awards, through seven different programs. These include basic science grants; Scholars Awards; and grants to support travel for collaboration and community-based clinical trials. In addition, each year since 1988, AmFAR has administered three awards programs for pediatric AIDS research, in coordination with the Pediatric AIDS Foundation of Los Angeles. According to Silverman, Am-FAR's internal statistical analyses have found that each dollar of Am-FAR funding has generated $28 of subsequent research support from other sources. Craig Rosen himself exemplifies the springboard that AmFAR grants provide. Rosen received an AmFAR grant in 1985 to study the Tat protein, one of two regulatory proteins necessary for HIV replication and a significant target for therapeutic intervention. Rosen says that the research he conducted under his AmFAR grant helped him obtain NIH funding for work on regulation of HIV gene expression. Because AmFAR "fills in to fund preliminary findings," he says, "possibly off-beat," novel research probes aren't prematurely buried. "We've gotten a lot of people into the field," says Scientific Advisory Committee member Gordon R. Dreesman, senior scientific director for virology and immunology at BioTech Resources Inc. of San Antonio, Texas. He credits AmFAR's founders, actress Elizabeth Taylor and cytogeneticist Mathilde Krim, an adjunct professor at Columbia University School of Public Health and AmFAR cochairwoman, with attracting professional attention and funds to AIDS/HIV research. Dreesman emphasizes AmFAR's role in encouraging veteran scientists working in other areas to switch gears and explore implications relating to HIV/AIDS. Yvonne Paterson falls into this category. An associate professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania, Paterson is an immunologist who has spent most of her career studying basic healthy immune mechanisms. Intrigued by the work in bacterial pathogenesis of colleagues such as Daniel Portnoy, also an associate professor of microbiology at Penn, Paterson has collaborated on investigations, which in turn prompted research leading to her successful application for an AmFAR grant. AmFAR funds support Paterson's tests of the ability to raise a cytotoxic T-cell response to HIV proteins, using the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes as a "protein synthetic factory." Paterson says her research could lead to a new approach to a vaccine vector, noting that the AmFAR grant allows a "look-see" to determine if preliminary results merit further consideration. AmFAR's Scholars Awards program, aimed at young investigators, provides salary support for a three-year postdoctoral fellowship. Eight Scholars Awards, totaling more than $820,000, were granted this past March. Judith A. Scheppler, a research fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y., is rounding the corner on the first year of her fellowship, focusing in part on a new reporter gene system, under the sponsorship of senior researcher B. Robert Franza, Jr. Without the grant, Scheppler speculates that she would have had to seek a different sort of position that might have disrupted full-time research. She says that AmFAR funding "provides me freedom" to concentrate, broaden research skills, interact with other professionals, and build onto an immunology background research experiences in molecular biology. Requests for proposals for the basic science program are sent out each February, and RFPs for both the basic science and the Scholars Awards programs are circulated in June; the cycles are completed, respectively, in September and March. Researchers whose proposals are successful receive their total funding up front, Dempsey says. AmFAR uses a two-stage process to review basic science and Scholars Awards applications. The foundation first receives short letters of intent, which are promptly screened by at least two scientists serving on AmFAR's scientific advisory committee. Applicants are told within approximately two months whether AmFAR is interested in receiving more information. Dempsey notes that out of 479 letters of intent for basic science research grants in the review cycle completed March 1, 1992, AmFAR requested more detailed submissions from 125 applicants; out of 100 letters of intent for Scholars Awards, AmFAR solicited proposals from 34. Each formal proposal is studied by three reviewers, who present the proposals to the larger advisory body at an intensive weekend review session. Advisory committee head Rosen estimates that 25 percent to 30 percent of the proposals are funded. The typical grant for basic research runs for one year with a maximum award of $60,000. Seven out of 29 basic science awards given in the March 1992 cycle were renewals, according to Dempsey. Reviewers are drawn from AmFAR's Scientific Advisory Committee, consisting of more than 50 volunteers, including lab-oriented and clinical researchers, plus social scientists, according to Peter Wolf, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a practicing physician affiliated with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Wolf maintains that the interdisciplinary approach mobilizes expertise to the HIV/AIDS problem and helps cross-fertilize efforts in different fields. "We don't want to duplicate," says Silverman. "If the feds are meeting needs in a certain area, we look here." Dreesman says reviewers seek observations that seem to be likely crossroads or lead to new turns in conquering the epidemic. Rosen says he'd like "to see more on opportunistic infections." The direction of AmFAR grants will evolve as new discoveries are made, says Rosen, who notes that the grants "change as science does." For more information about AmFAR's grants programs, write to 5900 Wilshire Blvd., Second Floor, East Satellite, Los Angeles, Calif. 90036-5032; (213) 857-5900. Ann L. Rappoport is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia.

AIDS Foundation Initiates Funding For TB Research

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of