You Can Live Without Them-STDs
Sexually Transmitted Diseases Research Boosted by Grants

Three grants, totaling $16.83 million, have been received by the IUSM Division of Infectious Diseases for continued research into sexually transmitted diseases.

IUSM is home to the only adult STD research center in the Midwest funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The Midwest Sexually Transmitted Disease Cooperative Research Center is the recipient of a four-year, $4.52-million grant renewal. Initially funded in 1991, the center is a consortium between IUSM and Northwestern University Medical School.

Center Director Stanley Spinola, MD, says the primary objective of the Midwest Center is to enhance the efforts of physicians and researchers with different scientific backgrounds and interests in sexually transmitted diseases. The ultimate goal is to develop new approaches to prevention of STDs. The focus of this center is adult STD research.

The Mid-America Adolescent Sexually Transmitted Disease Cooperative Research Center concentrates on behavioral issues pertaining to youth. It is the only NIH-funded center of its kind in the nation.

The Indiana AIDS Clinical Trials Unit received $10.06 million in renewed funding for its five-year grant. This is the fourth renewal of the Unit's NIAID grant. The Indiana unit ranked among the top third of all units in the competitive renewal process and was awarded nearly a fifty-percent increase in funding based on its performance the past three years.

Director of the Indiana AIDS CTU is L. Joseph Wheat, MD. The unit is part of the Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group, the largest clinical trials network in the world. The grant renewal allows clinical trials units nationwide to continue their work to prevent and treat the deadly HIV virus.

Advances made possible by this national network of clinical units markedly have improved the management of persons with AIDS, resulting in a significant reduction in mortality and improvement in quality of life, says Dr. Wheat. Currently, his unit and others across the nation are increasing their emphasis on methods to boost patients' immune response to HIV and are beginning to use HIV vaccination for this purpose.

The third major grant awarded to the division comes from the Centers for Disease Control and was awarded to Kenneth H. Fife, MD, PhD, principal investigator. The three-year grant, in the amount of $2.25 million, will be used to develop strategies to prevent genital herpes simplex infections and to build the first national prevention program. The University of Cincinnati will collaborate with IUSM on the project.

IUSM researchers will focus on issues related to testing for exposure to HSV-2 in adults. Researchers at the University of Cincinnati will conduct similar studies in adolescents and college students. IU investigators also will study patients who have recently acquired genital herpes to determine how they were infected.

The CDC reports that more than forty-five million people age twelve and older (one of five of the total adolescent and adult population) are infected with HSV-2, representing a thirty-percent increase in the past two decades.