An official website of the United States government.
<p>
This proposal is to establish an ACTU with a main unit based at Tulane University Medical Center and a subunit at Louisiana state University Medical Center, both in New Orleans, with the following goals: <ol>
<li> To recruit 80 or more new patients per year into ACTG sponsored Phase I, II, III protocols for the treatment of HIV infection, opportunistic infections, and neurologic complications of AIDS. </li>
<li> To use GCRC for Phase I and II clinical trials and pathogenesis-related exploratory trials of new treatments for HIV. </li>
<li> To establish support laboratories to perform protocol mandated studies in virology, pharmacology, and immunology. </li>
<li> To systematically address women's health-related issues. </li>
<li> To recruit an ethnically diverse population of patients, representative of the regional population, in order to give minority populations and women access to ACTG clinical trials. </li>
<li> To address the subjects of compliance and patient retention, including outreach programs. </li>
<li> To work with the local CAB to include local patients and their advocates in the implementation of the ACTU research agenda.</li></ol></p>
<P>
Scientifically the following areas will be emphasized:
<ol>
<li> Phase I pharmacokinetic, drug interactions, and toxicity studies, and pilot studies of HIV pathogenesis; </li>
<li> Correlations of plasma and intracellular drug levels with changes in viral load; </li>
<li> Pathogenesis of HIV and HTLV-I/II co-infection; </li>
<li> Therapy of HIV-induced thrombocytopenia; </li>
<li> HIV neuropathy; </li>
<li> Immune resistance of HIV; </li>
<li> Mechanisms and prevention of HIV-induced apoptosis; </li>
<li> Therapy of opportunistic diseases (mainly microporidiosis and mycobacterial infections); </li>
<li> Pathogenesis and therapy of cervical dysplasia in HIV infected women. </li> </ol></p>