Grant applications sought for HIV pilot projects

A newly formed center dedicated to researching differences in HIV-infected people of different ethnicities and gender is seeking applications from investigators for one-year grants of $20,000.

The California Research Center for the Biology of HIV in Minorities will provide the grants to allow researchers to collect preliminary data needed for external, peer-reviewed research applications. The grants will fund pilot projects by junior investigators, post-doctoral fellows and established investigators. Applicants are encouraged to submit collaborative, multidisciplinary research projects.

The projects to be supported will focus on the primary goals of the center, which are to increase understanding of HIV/AIDS in under-represented minorities and by gender. The center will accomplish this by providing support through Administrative, Pilot Project, Clinical, Immunology and Virology Cores. The center will place an emphasis on training and developing junior researchers as well as women and under-represented researchers.

The center is a joint project of the UC Davis School of Medicine and the Viral Rickettsial Disease Laboratory of the California Department of Health Sciences. The California Research Center for the Biology of HIV in Minorities is one of five HIV/AIDS research centers awarded funding by the Universitywide AIDS Research Program of the University of California Office of the President. It received $3.38 million for a four-year period beginning July 1, 2005. The source of patient subjects for the center will be the Center for AIDS Research, Education and Services (CARES) in Sacramento.

The goal of the center is to focus on immunologic and virologic differences in HIV-infected subjects of different ethnicities and gender. The center will enhance HIV research at its partnering institutions, conduct seminars and provide training, with the aim of generating important new information about HIV in ethnic minorities and women in California.

The center will issue two requests for proposals per year and intends to support seven-to-10 proposals in its first year, depending on the quality of the proposals and the level of funding. Proposals must be limited to a maximum of five pages. Clinical investigators and biostaticians are available to help applicants prepare their proposals. Pilot Project Core reviewers will peer-review and select the proposals.

The deadline to apply is May 1. Funds will be available in mid-June.

For more information, contact Satya Dandekar, professor of microbiology and immunology, at (530) 752-3409 or sdandekar@ucdavis.edu.

Here is the contact information for the center’s different core services:

Administrative Core

Richard B. Pollard, principal investigator

rbpollard@ucdavis.edu

Pilot Project Core

Satya Dandekar, core director

sdandekar@ucdavis.edu

Clinical Core

Richard B. Pollard, core director

Donna DeFreitas, co-director

donna.defreitas@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu

Immunology Core

David Asmuth, core director

david.asmuth@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu

Virology Core

Haynes Sheppard, core director

hsheppard@dhs.ca.gov