MEDICINE
UB awarded grant to fight against global AIDS epidemic
Buffalo will play a vital international role in the fight against the global AIDS epidemic.
A $7.6 million grant has been awarded to the University at Buffalo to fund a major quality control program and laboratory that will train researchers in developing countries and ensure they’re properly conducting clinical trials for new AIDS drugs.
The seven-year grant, announced by university officials Tuesday, was awarded to the UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a subgroup of the deep-pocketed National Institutes of Health.
It’s one of the single largest contracts UB has ever received.
“To get this type of award has really taken my entire career,” said Gene Morse, the associate dean for clinical and transitional research, who will be spearheading efforts.
An estimated 33 million children and adults are living with HIV worldwide, creating what’s become a series of smaller epidemics in developing countries, Morse said.
The focus in the fight against HIV/AIDS is on increasing clinical trials in those countries of antiretroviral drugs, which inhibit the replication of the HIV virus and boost survival rates.
But clinical trials for new drugs and therapies need to be conducted where the infection rate is the highest, and most of those regions are in countries where laboratories, clinics and trained scientists are scarce.
So, UB — working with a network of global researchers — will create a broad-based program to help facilitate high-quality research.
UB will provide online pharmacology training for as many as 200 clinical researchers a year studying the effectiveness of AIDS drugs.
UB staffers also will conduct on-site laboratory audits, disseminate HIV/AIDS data, and establish a centralized Web site that will provide worldwide access to research information.
The program, essentially, is replicating on a worldwide scale the clinical trial program Morse and his staff have been conducting for years at UB, where they test and monitor the effects of the many medications taken by HIV/AIDS patients at Erie County Medical Center.
“Our mission is to try to help all of them do what we’re doing here in Buffalo,” Morse said.
The program will operate out of the Pharmacotherapy Research Center on the North Campus, as well as the Center for Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, where officials announced the grant Tuesday morning.
In fact, Morse said, the work at the lab could expand to focus on cancer, diabetes and other diseases.
