ERC Einstein Rockefeller CUNY Center for AIDS Research

PROJECT SUMMARY ERC-CFAR: ADMINISTRATIVE CORE (AC) The continued location of New York City (NYC) as an epicenters of the HIV epidemic, with four of the 48 counties with the highest number of new HIV diagnoses targeted by the Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. (EHE) plan, makes NYC is an essential location for leveraging the capacity of a CFAR to mobilize, lead, and coordinate the multidisciplinary research response required to achieve the EHE goal of ending the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years. The Einstein/Rockefeller/CUNY (ERC)-CFAR, led by the Administrative Core (AC), brings together, synergizes and focuses researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Einstein), Rockefeller University (Rockefeller), and CUNY School of Public Health/Hunter College (CUNY), as well as from the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH) on the overarching goal of stopping new HIV infections. The Administrative Core (AC) coordinates ERC- CFAR resources and activities to enable the collective ERC-CFAR research community to accelerate their research developing novel strategies to increase uptake of current treatments and discovering new approaches to prevent, treat, and functionally cure HIV. The AC guides the ERC-CFAR using a Strategic plan which is updated annually in a process that integrates input from our Executive, Steering, Internal and External Scientific Advisory Committees, and Community Participatory Partnership and an annual membership survey. An metric indicating our success during the previous funding period is a 30% increase in our OAR FRB from ~$34M to ~$44.7M and the publication by ERC-CFAR investigators of over 1,250 papers. We have obtained an increased annual institutional commitment of $620K ($3.1 million over five years) from the Einstein, Rockefeller, and CUNY leadership to further expand our activities. The AC provides sound and dynamic financial management of the ERC-CFAR with the agility to reallocate funds and realign Cores and Scientific Working Groups (SWGs) to support emerging high-priority research directions from OAR/NIH initiatives and recommendations from our Internal and External Scientific Advisory Boards. This is accomplished through the following four Specific Aims: 1) To develop and implement a strategic planning process that will quantitatively and qualitatively increase and improve collaborative, trans-institutional, interdisciplinary, and translational HIV research among Einstein, Rockefeller, and CUNY investigators; 2) To utilize a responsive and inclusive scientific leadership structure, Cores, and a SWG to drive synergism among Einstein, Rockefeller, and CUNY investigators, and to coordinate and expand the investigative and educational HIV activities at Einstein, Rockefeller, and CUNY; 3) To promote interactions of ERC- CFAR investigators with other inter-CFAR activities and with NYC; and 4) To utilize outcome measures to monitor success in meeting ERC-CFAR goals and programs.