Research into new prevention technologies, including vaccines, effective treatment regimens, and improved deployment of existing approaches, remains of central importance to eventual control of AIDS. However, the scientific and public health questions which require the most urgent answers are increasingly difficult to investigate in developed world settings. International collaborative HIV/AIDS research, and the training needed for developing country scientists to lead that research, remains an urgent global priority and a public health necessity.

From its inception the Hopkins AITRP has endeavored to provide training and research support to developing country partners in training relevant to the growing global HIV/AIDS research agenda. Our model has been to provide training in support of collaborative research between faculty of the Johns Hopkins Schools of Public Health and Medicine and their developing country partners, to foster lasting research partnerships, and to assist developing country scientists in establishing their own, and their countries’, capacity in independent HIV/AIDS research. We have measured our success through scientific contributions, competitive funding awards, the impact on country responses of returning fellows, and leadership in international HIV/AIDS research on the part of our trainees.

The Hopkins AITRP is located in the Department of Epidemiology in the Bloomberg School of Public Health; the Principal Investigator is Dr. Chris Beyrer. However, it is a campus-wide program involving faculty and trainees in departments in both the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the School of Medicine. Our international partners include institutions and investigators in Uganda, Malawi, Ethiopia, South Africa, Cameroon, Thailand, India, China, Laos, Russia, The Dominican Republic and Brazil. Primary departments participating in the program are: Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Health Policy & Management, International Health, Molecular Microbiology & Immunology and Population & Family Health Sciences in the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Departments of Clinical Investigation, Medicine, Pathology, Pediatrics and OB/GYN in the School of Medicine. Campus-wide centers such as the Center for Immunization Research (CIR), the Center for Clinical Trials (CCT), the Center for Clinical Global Health Education (CCGHE), the Center for Public Health and Human Rights, the Center for TB Research, The Bioethics Institute, and the Center for Communications Programs (CCP) serve as resources for faculty and training programs. The Johns Hopkins University Fogarty AITRP is now in its fourth five-year funding cycle, Years 16-20. Year 19 began June 1, 2006.

For more information, visit the program''''''''s web site.