Duke CFAR
VISION
The vision of the Duke Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) is to foster interdisciplinary collaborations and catalyze translational research innovations with the goal of transforming care for people with or at risk of HIV infection to end the HIV epidemic, with a particular focus on the Southern United States. To achieve this vision, we foster an inclusive and supportive research ecosystem for the next generation of HIV investigators, stimulate multidisciplinary collaboration and team science, provide cutting edge infrastructure, and promote and disseminate knowledge across our institution, community, and beyond. To ensure that the scientific discoveries supported by the CFAR are equitably translated, we extend our partnerships and collaborations with community organizations, local and state public health departments, and minority serving institutions to align our work with the health priorities of our communities and patients.
The Duke CFAR, currently in its 20th year of funding, has a diverse engagement, bringing together researchers and health care providers from across the Duke University campus including Centers, Institutes, Departments, and Schools. CFAR brings together 5 service Cores, a health services research SWG, and community engagement to support HIV researchers in reducing the burden of HIV and ending the epidemic.
HIV research at Duke is longstanding and evolving since 1983 to address challenges posed by the epidemic over time. Early on, Duke provided laboratory containment space to conduct groundbreaking work with leadership through the Departments of Surgery and Medicine. Early successes included contributing to research that identified azidothymidine (AZT) and later bringing to market a first in class fusion inhibitor (enfuvirtide). These early years were focused on antiviral research and basic molecular virology to understand the virus life cycle and identify new targets for therapeutics, vaccines, and cure strategies. From the earliest designs of HIV vaccines, Duke researchers pioneered the evaluation of HIV vaccines through innovative and robust immune monitoring - a program that still exists today and has evolved with new leadership and availability of the most advanced technologies.
Through major funding from NIH, first as the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI) and now as the Consortium for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development (CHAVD), Duke has substantially supported novel vaccine development and international collaborations to solve complex research challenges. Duke has a longstanding history in building and sustaining international programs, capacity building, and engagement. The Duke CFAR continues to evolve in scope and in leadership to meet the needs of the changing landscape of research at Duke, nationally, and globally.
The Centers for AIDS Research (CFAR) program at the National Institutes of Health provides administrative and shared research support to synergistically enhance and coordinate high quality AIDS research projects. CFARs accomplish this through core facilities that provide expertise, resources, and services not otherwise readily obtained through more traditional funding mechanisms.
The CFAR program emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration, especially between basic and clinical investigators, translational research in which findings from the laboratory are brought to the clinic and vice versa, and an emphasis upon inclusion of minorities and inclusion of prevention and behavioral change research.
This program was originally begun by the NIAID Division of AIDS in 1988 and most recently renewed through a 2021 program announcement. CFARs are co-funded by eleven NIH Institutes.
The Duke CFAR is one of 18 Centers for AIDS Research located at academic and research institutions throughout the United States
