NIMH funding opportunities for NeuroAIDS therapeutics development research

While HAART has improved and saved the lives of millions of people living with HIV, the prevalence of HIV-associated neuropsychological & neurological disorders are reportedly increasing. This is thought to be due, at least in part, to the prolonged life span of infected individuals and the lack of efficient CNS-targeted antiretroviral therapy. Many lines of the evidence have shown not only that HIV enters the CNS early in the course of infection but suggest that the brain may also be a sanctuary site for HIV latent virus. However, most current FDA approved HIV drugs have difficulty penetrating the blood-brain-barrier and do not achieve efficacious concentrations in affected brain regions. Another hurdle in the treatment of NeuroAIDS has been the lack of the appropriate cell-based assays and animal models to screen potential therapeutic compounds. In order to foster and encourage NeuroAIDS therapeutics development research, NIMH published two sets of program announcements. One set of initiatives was targeted for consideration by both public and private research sectors (PA06-139 and PA06-140) in March of 2006:

http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-06-139.html;

http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-06-140.html.

Another set of initiatives was targeted specifically toward small business research programs (PA-06-432 and PA-06-433):

http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-06-432.html;

http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-06-433.html.