Tennessee Center for AIDS Research
The Tennessee Center for AIDS Research leverages complementary strengths of its four partner institutions to have broad and substantial impact on the HIV epidemic. Located in Nashville, TN, our CFAR was established in 2015, under the leadership of Professor Simon Mallal. The partnership includes a research-intensive medical institution (Vanderbilt University Medical Center, VUMC), a historically black medical college (Meharry Medical College, MMC), an academically engaged state health department (Tennessee Department of Health, TDH), and a sophisticated HIV community-based organization (Nashville CARES). This partnership has fostered collaborations that would be unimaginable without CFAR.
// HIV/AIDS Research
About the Tennessee Center for AIDS Research
Decades of research have generated knowledge and tools with the potential to prevent all new HIV infections, to ultimately end the HIV epidemic in the United States and worldwide, and to improve the lives of people living with HIV. To date, reality has fallen short of these goals, in part due to pressing unmet needs. The Tennessee Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) is located in the Southeastern United States, the region with the greatest number of new HIV infections, and of persons living with HIV. This CFAR has fostered collaborations that would be unimaginable without CFAR, focused toward ending the HIV epidemic. The Tennessee Center for AIDS Research is primarily supported by National Institutes of Health grant P30 AI110527.
Participating Institutions with the TN CFAR
Meharry Medical College
Meharry Medical College, the nation’s largest private historically African American institution dedicated to educating health-care professionals and biomedical scientists, opened in 1876 to train physicians to care for freed slaves. Situated in the heart of Nashville’s African-American community, MMC maintains strong ties with those who remember that, for nearly a century, it was the only place where African Americans could receive care. Many HIV-positive African Americans seek care at MMC and its affiliated Metropolitan Nashville General Hospital. Nashville is also home to other minority immigrant groups, prominently Latinos. MMC is a leader in: 1) delivering community-oriented health care to underserved and minority populations, 2) training professionals in primary care medicine, dentistry, allied health services, and graduate studies and research; and 3) conducting basic, clinical and applied research that emphasizes conditions that disproportionately affect minority populations. MMC comprises Schools of Medicine, Dentistry, and Graduate Studies and Research (granting PhD degrees in Biochemistry, Microbiology, Pharmacology or Physiology and MSPH degrees). Its School of Medicine has 204 faculty members (approximately one-tenth as many as Vanderbilt) and 104 students each year.
Nashville CARES
Nashville CARES (“Community AIDS Resources, Education and Services”) is a sophisticated research-engaged CBO that works to end the epidemic through education, advocacy and support for those at risk of, or living with, HIV. Its exclusive focus has remained HIV/AIDS. In 2018, CARES served >50,000 persons, including HIV prevention education to >29,000 youth and adults, >10,000 free HIV tests (with 104 people who tested positive then linked to care and support), and essential support services to 3,400 individuals living with HIV. Individuals and families supported by CARES come from every community, in numbers which reflect the HIV incidence in each community. CARES serves 17 counties, both urban and rural, which account for ~90% of the reported prevalence of HIV in Middle Tennessee. Staff are deployed throughout the region to bring services to individuals and families. By contract with TDH, CARES manages a statewide program that provides assistance for health insurance continuation to >4,000 PLWH and their families. The scope of CARES services provided is impressive and include education, testing, lodging, food security, travel, counseling, household chores, distribution of prevention materials, dental care, and medical care.
Tennessee Department of Health
Tennessee Department of Health (TDH), based within 2 miles of VUMC, MMC and CARES, has a decades-long history of productive collaboration with VUMC and other academic partners. This has allowed augmented resources between institutions to maximize public health benefit. VUMC strength in analyzing the extensive data collected by the public health system, which are otherwise not optimally utilized, have helped Tennessee become a leader in (non-HIV) interpretation and application of data, and implementation of programs and interventions in various public health fields. Since 2015, because of the CFAR, this now includes HIV.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), the primary institutional home for the CFAR, includes the School of Medicine (>2,500 full time faculty, 96 MD degrees awarded yearly), School of Nursing (137 full time faculty), Vanderbilt University Hospital, Monroe Carell Jr. Childrens’ Hospital at Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt Clinic, Psychiatric Hospital at Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital, Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center, Dayani Human Performance Center, and Vanderbilt Medical Group. In 2016, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) ranked #8 among US medical schools in total NIH grant support ($340 million, a 14% increase from 2015). The VUMC research enterprise benefits from a tradition and culture of collaboration, cross-departmental and cross-school research centers/institutes, unified clinical and academic enterprises, and forward-thinking leadership. In 2016, the Department of Medicine in which the CFAR is housed ranked #2 in NIH funding among 112 such departments nationwide ($161 million).
Our Mission
The mission of the Tennessee CFAR is to reduce the burden of HIV/AIDS in Tennessee and to implement these benefits nationally and globally.
Acknowledging the TN CFAR
Acknowledgement of support from the Tennessee CFAR should be included when findings are reported, published or publicity is given to the work, as follows: “This work was funded in part [or entirely] by the NIH-funded Tennessee Center for AIDS Research (P30 AI110527).”
Get Involved!
There are multiple ways to join us in our mission to reduce the burden of HIV at the local, national and global level.
Our Cores & Services
The Tennessee CFAR provides cores and services that fulfill the mission of the TN CFAR.