6 June, 2000--As efforts to develop an AIDS vaccine intensify worldwide, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the University of California, San Francisco, today announced plans to provide researchers with a premier, centralized online source of information on all aspects of AIDS prevention.
The new AAAS venture, supported by an $850,000 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), will be launched in collaboration with the UCSF's popular web site, HIVInSite, which serves medical practitioners, policymakers, patients and the lay public. These "sister sites" will be linked together to better serve consumers and scientists, says Ellis Rubinstein, editor of Science, the leading weekly research journal published by the AAAS.
Now averaging roughly four million visitors from 150 different countries each month, HIV InSite is a joint effort of the UCSF AIDS Research Institute's Center for AIDS Prevention Studies and the UCSF Positive Health Program at San Francisco General Hospital, which cares for about one-third of the city's HIV-infected patients.
Expanding on a small but popular web site, http://www.Sciencemag.org/NAIDS, which is devoted to the neurological impacts of AIDS, the new site will provide a global online forum where scientists can gather and exchange the latest information on HIV prevention. The site will publish peer-reviewed papers and review articles, as well as daily features and information resources for scientists.
This kind of information exchange is vital to preventing HIV/AIDS, emphasizes Paul Volberding, M.D., UCSF professor of medicine and director of the UCSF Positive Health Program. "Working with the global epidemic of HIV from our base so close to the Silicon Valley, we can't help believing that this type of information distributed worldwide will have a major impact on vaccine development. We are excited at the novel partnership
'"/>
Contact: Ginger Pinholster
gpinhols@aaas.org
202-326-6421
American Association for the Advancement of Science
5-Jun-2000