How do scientists organize research on a new and deadly disease?
In the NIH campus laboratories in Bethesda, Maryland, charting ones
research path and redirecting it was relatively easy: it required
only the agreement of the laboratorys chief scientist and
the Institutes scientific director. This allowed a diverse
team of physicians and scientists at NIHthose with expertise
in cancer, in immunology, in blood sciences, and in drug developmentto
quickly form collaborations early on in the AIDS crisis. The AIDS
Memorandum, an informal newsletter that fast-tracked unpublished
information, circulated among the NIH scientists working on the
disease. My own view is that from the early days we progressed
as fast as anyone had a good idea to support, recalls Dr.
Kenneth Sell, then scientific director of the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. When Dr. Anthony S. Fauci became
NIAID director in 1984, he came to the job with a strong personal
involvement and interest in AIDS research. In addition to maintaining
his own research laboratory and clinical duties devoted to AIDS,
he established a special AIDS division within the Institute. NIAID
staff oversaw the allocation of most AIDS grants, conducted outreach
activities with community groups concerned about AIDS, started long-term
studies of people with AIDS, collaborated with the National Cancer
Institute to set up a drug discovery process for AIDS drugs, and
inaugurated nationwide networks of clinical trial sites to test
the most promising drugs and vaccines. In universities and hospitals
across the nation, scientists prepared proposals for NIH funding
describing the AIDS-related research they wanted to do. After being
reviewed by other scientists, those proposals that looked most promising
were awarded NIH grants. Although this research grant process could
take up to two years, during the early years of AIDS it moved faster,
particularly after Congress allocated additional money in 1986.
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