Campbell CDTC
Children’s Diagnostic and Treatment Center (CDTC), left to right: Marie Hayes of CDTC; Deborah Gilchrist of JP Morgan Chase and CDTC board member; Bill Venuti, Campbell Foundation trustee; Ken Rapkin of the Campbell Foundation; Ana E. Calderon Randazzo of CDTC; Ana Puga of CDTC; Dan Overbey of Atlantic Capital Advisors and CDTC board member.

The Southern United States is the epicenter of our nation’s AIDS epidemic, and it could become the center of groundbreaking HIV research. Three groups of HIV scientists in south Florida each received $30,000 fast-track research grants from the Campbell Foundation, according to a Campbell press release.

One of the projects explores the “real world feasibility and psychological impact” of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, which is a daily prevention pill for HIV-negative people. The study is headed by Ana Puga, MD, and Marie Hayes, MSW, at Children’s Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Fort Lauderdale.

The goal of another project is to reduce or prevent acute HIV infection, and then slow down chronic infection. Mathias Lichtenheld, MD, at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, helms two research projects that use molecular biology to see how the immune system interacts with HIV.

The third Campbell fast-track grant goes to research on a cellular protein called SRSF1 that has been shown to slow the replication of HIV inside CD4 cells without altering the treated cells. Massimo Caputi, PhD, with Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, oversees this project.

The Campbell Foundation is a Florida-based organization that specializes in funding clinical, laboratory-based research on HIV/AIDS. To learn more, see the POZ article “Focusing on Nonprofit HIV Research.”

Campbell UM
University of Miami, left to right: Bill Venuti, Campbell Foundation trustee; Mathias Lichtenheld of the University of Miami; and Ken Rapkin of the Campbell Foundation.
Campbell FAU
Florida Atlantic University, left to right: Bill Venuti, Campbell Foundation trustee; Massimo Caputi of Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine; and Ken Rapkin of the Campbell Foundation.