University AIDS work to be united in HUPA

The several AIDS-related programs that exist at Harvard will be united under the new Harvard University Program on AIDS (HUPA), Provost Steven E. Hyman announced today (June 17). The program will better harness and leverage the University’s research, education, and fundraising resources to prevent and treat this deadly global disease.

The current portfolio of Harvard AIDS-related work consists of independent projects located primarily at the Harvard Medical School (HMS), affiliated hospitals, and the School of Public Health (HSPH). HUPA, which will coordinate all of these activities under the umbrella of the Harvard Initiative for Global Health (HIGH), will be the public face of all AIDS work at Harvard.

The Harvard University Program on AIDS will facilitate expanded and highly visible educational activities (undergraduate, graduate, and medical), coordination of field sites to take advantage of potential synergies (e.g., joint investments in core facilities; possible spin-off studies), seminar series and conferences, and expanded research opportunities (including projects with other programs operating under the global health umbrella.).

Paul Farmer, the Presley Professor of Social Medicine at HMS, will be the first chair of HUPA. A HUPA faculty committee will be a subcommittee of the Harvard Initiative for Global Health’s Faculty Steering Committee; the initial group of faculty committee members nominated to be on the HUPA committee include David Bloom, professor of population and health economics in the Faculty of Public Health; Lincoln Chen, research associate at the Harvard Asia Center; David Cutler, Loeb Professor of Social Sciences and dean for the social sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Ray Dolin, Finland Professor of Medicine and dean for academic and clinical programs at HMS; Max Essex, the Given Professor of Infectious Diseases in the Faculty of Public Health; Martin Hirsch, professor of medicine at HMS and of immunology and infectious diseases in the Faculty of Public Health; Phyllis Kanki, professor of immunology and infectious diseases in the Faculty of Public Health; Chris Murray, Saltonstall Professor of Population Policy in the Faculty of Public Health and professor of social medicine; John Ruggie, Kirkpatrick Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government; Joe Sodroski, professor of pathology at HMS and professor in the Faculty of Public Health; Bruce Walker, HMS professor of medicine; and Dyann Wirth, professor of immunology and infectious diseases at HSPH.

Hyman will convene the first meeting of HUPA before the start of the classes in the fall of 2004.