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Fogarty's Bridbord Receives NIH AIDS Award

As part of its commemoration of World AIDS Day December 1, NIH has announced Fogarty's Ken Bridbord, M.D., M.P.H., will receive a 2007 NIH World AIDS Day Award. Dr. Bridbord, Director of the Fogarty International Center's Division of International Training and Research, is being recognized for his efforts to develop innovative programs to build a cadre of international research scientists and clinicians trained to join the global fight against the AIDS pandemic. The programs have played a significant role in building research infrastructure and capacity for the conduct of basic and clinical biomedical and behavioral AIDS research in more than 100 nations around the world.

"These awards demonstrate the NIH commitment to supporting a multifaceted research effort in HIV/AIDS, with the goal of fostering the best minds to work together as partners to develop new medical tools to stop the devastating effects of the disease around the world," says NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D.

In 1988, Dr. Bridbord created Fogarty's AIDS International Training and Research Program (AITRP) to respond to the demand for in-country research and public health capacity to effectively deal with the expanding HIV/AIDS epidemic. The program--the first of its kind--has built much-needed scientific and public health capacity in more than 100, mostly low- and middle-income nations. Many of the 2,000 graduates of this program have become senior leaders at foreign universities, have applied successfully for grants from NIH and other science funding agencies, and have formed the framework for effective public policymaking in their home countries. Graduates of the program are now associated with the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Combat AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria. Many leaders in the HIV community in the developing world today are alumni or have been trained by alumni of these programs, including the current or former ministers of health in Senegal, Rwanda, Uganda and Malawi.

In 2002, Dr. Bridbord played an important role in the establishment of a second HIV-related program: the International Clinical, Operational and Health Services Research Training Award for AIDS and TB (ICOHRTA AIDS/TB). This initiative supports research training to strengthen the capacity of institutions to conduct clinical, operational and health services research in low- and middle-income countries where AIDS, TB, or both are significant problems. The proposed research training addresses the skills needed at institutions to design and conduct HIV/AIDS and TB research for the scale-up of promising interventions to the population and health care system level.

"Ken Bridbord has been a true leader in responding to the global HIV epidemic," says Fogarty Director Roger I. Glass, M.D. "Ken's insight early in the epidemic was to appreciate the impact that HIV could have in the developing world. Crucially, he understood early on that training for research requires not only formal coursework but also participation in mentored research projects. His vision and leadership of Fogarty's successful AIDS training programs helped re-direct the Center's efforts to emphasize capacity building in resource-limited countries, which has become the structural model for our subsequent training programs."

In addition, a joint award is being made to Daniel Douek, M.D., Ph.D. and Richard Koup, M.D., of the Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). They are being honored for their original scientific research that significantly contributed to determining the mechanisms that control HIV pathogenesis and immune reconstitution. Their landmark findings have led the field in understanding the role of HIV-specific T cells in the control of HIV infection and helped to establish the immunological basis for the future development of an AIDS vaccine.

The annual award program, in its second year, was created by the Office of AIDS Research and NIAID to acknowledge the important contributions that NIH scientists have made to AIDS research.

More than 25 million men, women and children have already died, and an estimated 33.2 million people around the world are currently living with HIV infection, according to NIAID. Last year alone, an estimated 2.5 million new HIV infections occurred worldwide, and 2.1 million people died from AIDS.