As mentioned in the main article in this issue, Martin Delaney of Project Inform, who died on January 23, 2009, was a staunch advocate for cure research, stating in a 2001 magazine article: “It’s time once again to make ‘Cure AIDS now!’ the primary goal of treatment activism.” Delaney subsequently co-authored an article in the journal Science calling for the funding of collaborative research programs specifically focused on developing a cure for HIV.
In 2011, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the funding of the first three such programs, named the Martin Delaney Collaboratories in his honor. Last year the number was expanded to six, which are supported for the next five years:
BEAT-HIV: Delaney Collaboratory to Cure HIV-1 Infection by Combination Immunotherapy - Wistar Institute, Philadelphia
BELIEVE: Bench to Bed Enhanced Lymphocyte Infusions to Engineer Viral Eradication - George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
CARE: Collaboratory of AIDS Researchers for Eradication - University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
IC4: Combined Immunologic Approaches to Cure HIV-1 -
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston
defeatHIV: Cell and Gene Therapy for HIV Cure - Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle
DARE: Delaney AIDS Research Enterprise to Cure HIV - University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
More information on the specific research focus of each collaboratory can be found online.