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Susan R. Miller

Garton-Miller Media

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srmiller@gartonmillermedia.com

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FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA - Nov. 20, 2014 -- The Campbell Foundation, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based nonprofit organization, raised nearly $200,000 for HIV/AIDS research through a recent challenge grant to amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, one of the world’s leading nonprofit organizations dedicated to ending the AIDS epidemic through innovative research.

 

In September, The Campbell Foundation pledged to match up to $50,000 in new gifts toward amfAR’s Countdown to a Cure for AIDS, a research initiative aimed at developing the scientific basis for a cure by 2020. The goal is to invest $100 million in HIV cure research over the next six years. 

 

In two months, 1,600 donors contributed more than $140,000, bringing the total revenue from the matching campaign to nearly $200,000.

 

“With our Countdown to a Cure initiative, we are intensifying our research efforts over the next few years to support more collaboration among scientists focused on developing strategies to eliminate HIV infection,” said amfAR CEO Kevin Robert Frost.  “The Campbell Foundation can take great pride in knowing that its matching grant is helping to fund promising new research ideas that will advance our search for a cure.”

 

New breakthroughs over the last several years, including the case of the “Berlin patient”—the first and only person to have been cured of HIV—have brought the scientific community a new understanding of the challenges that must be overcome to get to a cure. Furthermore, there is general consensus among researchers that the key obstacle to a cure is the reservoirs of HIV that persist in various parts of the body and are impervious to antiretroviral therapy.

 

amfAR has established a “research roadmap” that identifies the four key challenges that stand in the way of a cure: chart the precise locations of the reservoirs; understand how HIV persists within them; record how much virus they hold; and, finally, eliminate the virus. amfAR is investing in targeted research projects that focus squarely on these four challenges.

 

“The Campbell Foundation’s goals are aligned with those of amfAR. Both organizations have worked toward eradicating HIV/AIDS and believe that one day there will be a cure,” said Campbell Foundation Program Officer Ken Rapkin. “Matching grants, such as this one, allow The Campbell Foundation to be involved in groundbreaking, novel research projects at some of the top laboratories in the world and we are pleased to have been able to play a part in amfAR’s latest funding initiative.”

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About The Campbell Foundation

The Campbell Foundation was established in 1995 by the late Richard Campbell Zahn as a private, independent nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting clinical, laboratory-based research into the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. It focuses its funding on supporting alternative, nontraditional avenues of research. In its 19th year, the Campbell Foundation has given away more than $9 million dollars, with about $1 million going to direct services. For more information visit us at: www.campbellfoundation.net

 

About amfAR

amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, is one of the world’s leading nonprofit organizations dedicated to the support of AIDS research, HIV prevention, treatment education, and the advocacy of sound AIDS-related public policy.  Since 1985, amfAR has invested close to $400 million in its programs and has awarded grants to more than 3,300 research teams worldwide. To learn more, visit us at www.amfar.org.