With $10.8 million grant, Yale launches attack on AIDS

The newly formed Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS will unite faculty members from more than six graduate and professional schools along with city and state organizations to study HIV prevention and the spread of the disease among low-income and minority inner-city residents.

"The challenge is to undertake research with the community as a partner and meet its needs while maintaining high academic excellence," said Michael Merson, the medical school dean of public health who proposed CIRA's creation and is now the program's director.

The National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse are funding the four-year grant, which aims to benefit both New Haven and the state. Despite ranking 38th in population, Connecticut ranks 16th in number of reported AIDS cases. And a disproportionate number of those cases involve intravenous drug users, heterosexuals, women and minorities. Over the past two years, the proposal to establish CIRA attracted increased attention in Washington, D.C. Connecticut legislators Sen. Christopher Dodd, Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Rep. Rosa DeLauro lobbied hard for the grant.

"The center will be poignant to the people of this state," Dodd said.

Dodd and DeLauro attended the press conference yesterday where Merson - who once directed the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS - announced the grant.

"Part of what encourages NIH and NIMH to give $11 million is that we focus on under-served populations," said DeLauro, a member of the House Appropriations Committee. "It's that collaboration that's most important - they're not interested in research that sits on shelves."

Intravenous drug users account for 50 percent of AIDS cases statewide - twice the national average. In addition, African Americans and Latinos comprised 63 percent of Connecticut AIDS cases, compared to 53 percent nationally, making Yale and New Haven an important research and testing ground for potential national HIV prevention strategies, administrators said.

Medical School Dean David Kessler, familiar with the national battle against AIDS from his tenure as FDA commissioner, praised the new center.

"The progress we've made [nationally] is real and tangible," Kessler said. "But that progress also has a downside. ... The nation is in danger of slipping back into the complacent attitude of the early days of this epidemic. This center is evidence that we will not let that happen."

At a time of budget-balancing and belt-tightening nationwide, the $10.8 million awards is cause for celebration, legislators said.

"It's always a battle," Dodd said. "But when you have a great product, it's easier. This is an issue people care very much about."