The Vanderbilt Meharry Developmental Center for AIDS Research, supported by a three-year, $750,000-a-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is one of 20 CFARs (centers for AIDS research) that have been established nationwide since 1988. Dr. Richard T. D'Aquila, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt, will direct the center.
The goal of the grant is to encourage collaboration between Vanderbilt, a top-15 medical school, and Meharry, one of the country's oldest historically African American medical school, to train new investigators to advance AIDS treatment and prevention. At the end of the three-year grant period, the center can apply for full center status and a larger continuation grant.
Vanderbilt and Meharry have been collaborating for several years on research involving the human immunodeficiency virus. Current AIDS-related funding by the NIH at both institutions exceeds $7 million.
The new center is an initiative of the Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance, established in 1999 to promote collaboration between the two institutions in teaching, research and patient care.
"This center will bring the core research infrastructure of Vanderbilt together with Meharry's expertise in treating HIV/AIDS, particularly among minority populations," said Dr. PonJola Coney, dean of the School of Medicine and senior vice president for health affairs at Meharry. "It is another example showing how the Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance enables our institutions to obtain new resources that neither institution could obtain singly."
According to Janet M. Young, Ph.D., CFAR program officer in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the Vanderbilt Meharry center is the first CFAR to include a traditionally African-American institution, Meharry.
"The NIH is excited and hopeful that this award will expand collaborations among AIDS investigators at Vanderbilt and Meharry, and lead to success in … studies related to racial disparities, the development of expertise relevant to understanding and control of the epidemic in the Southeast, and international HIV research," Young said.
"We already have a lot of strength in clinical HIV research, genetics and pharmacogenomics," said D'Aquila, the Addison B. Scoville Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt. "The review committee thought it was a real plus to merge Vanderbilt's scientific strength with Meharry's strength in education of minorities and access to the minority community."
The idea is "to try to encourage a multi-disciplinary effort to study racial and other disparities in HIV infection," he added. African-Americans are disproportionately affected by HIV, and rates of infection are higher in the Southeast than in other parts of the country.
Local resources
The new center is the latest example of scientific collaborations between Meharry and Vanderbilt that aim to understand and reduce the disproportionate impact of diseases such as cancer, diabetes and asthma on minority populations.
"The awarding of the CFAR developmental demonstrates our ability to work together to reduce health care disparities in HIV/AIDS locally and nationally," explained Dr. Steven G. Gabbe, dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
The center also will draw on its long-standing collaboration with Nashville's Comprehensive Care Center, one of the nation's largest outpatient AIDS treatment programs.
"It is one of the best models of an integrated HIV outpatient center in the United States," D'Aquila said. The Comprehensive Care Center follows more than 2,000 patients with the help of an electronic database and specimen archive. "That's a huge strength, to have clinical information and specimens to draw on for research," he added.
Global reach
Vanderbilt and Meharry also contribute to international efforts to improve treatment of AIDS and prevent the spread of the disease. For example, Dr. Peter Wright, chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt, has worked for 11 years with researchers in Haiti. That relationship has led to a new collaboration between the Vanderbilt AIDS Clinical Trials Center, which conducts studies in patients of promising AIDS treatments, and a clinical trials center in Haiti.
Dr. Vladimir Berthaud, a native of Haiti who directs the Division of Infectious Diseases at Meharry, also trains Haitian AIDS specialists. "The Vanderbilt Meharry Developmental CFAR will help coordinate and accelerate all of these diverse efforts," said Dr. David W. Haas, an associate director of the new center and principal investigator of the Vanderbilt AIDS Clinical Trials Center who, with D'Aquila and Wright, also works in Haiti.
Berthaud, also an associate director of the new center, said he hopes it will bolster efforts to open an AIDS clinical trial unit at Meharry. "This is very important," he says of the grant. "It will help us answer some questions about health disparities in HIV/AIDS. We need to study that more, in a more systematic fashion."
The center consists of several cores, which are now in operation. They include:
- A developmental core, directed by Dr. Philip J. Browning, assistant professor of Medicine and Cancer Biology at Vanderbilt, which awards internal grants to new investigators and funds pilot feasibility studies in AIDS research. Wright and Maria de Fatima Lima, Ph.D., dean of the Meharry School of Graduate Studies and Research, are associate directors.
- A clinical discovery core, which supports the work of clinical investigators and facilitates "translational" research from the laboratory to the bedside. Haas is the director and Berthaud is the associate director of this core.
- An immunpathogenesis core, which provides immunology laboratory services to investigators. Drs. Spyros A. Kalams and James Crowe of Vanderbilt are the director and associate director, respectively.
- A molecular virology and genetics core, which provides sophisticated genetic and virus culture techniques. Drs. Paul W. Spearman and Yi-Wei Tang of Vanderbilt are the director and associate director.
The ultimate solution to the worldwide AIDS epidemic is a vaccine that can prevent HIV infection. Vanderbilt is heavily committed to that effort, too. "While we're working toward that long-term goal, (we need to) keep improving therapy so that (AIDS) really can become a controllable disease that will not kill people," he said.
Meharry Medical College is the nation's largest private, independent historically black institution dedicated solely to educating health science professionals. Since its founding in 1876, it has been a leading educator of African-American physicians, dentists and biomedical scientists. The College is particularly well known for its emphasis on the special primary health care needs of minorities, the poor and the disadvantaged of America. Its graduates are respected nationwide for their commitment to underserved communities.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center is a top-20 NIH-funded academic research institute. It is made up of Vanderbilt University Hospital, a U.S. News & World Report "honor roll" facility; Vanderbilt School of Medicine, a top-15 U.S. News & World Report medical school; The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, an NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center; The Vanderbilt Clinic; Vanderbilt Medical Group; a new freestanding 200-bed Vanderbilt Children's Hospital and Vanderbilt School of Nursing. Its faculty members having been awarded two Nobel Prizes for Medicine.