AmfAR

The Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), known until 2005 as The American Foundation for AIDS Research, is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of AIDS research, HIV prevention, treatment education, and the advocacy of AIDS-related public policy. amfAR is a tax-exempt corporation under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) and operates as an independent nonprofit with worldwide initiatives. amfAR was formed in September 1985 by actress Elizabeth Taylor, researcher Mathilde Krim, physicians Michael S. Gottlieb and Joseph Sonnabend, and activist Michael Callen. The organization was created when Taylor and Gottlieb's California-based National AIDS Research Foundation, which sought to actively engage in HIV-related drug development, merged with Krim's New York-based AIDS Medical Foundation (AMF), which sought to lessen the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS diagnoses, as well as to increase funding to the cause. What resulted was a foundation that prioritized both research and development as well as policy influence. This foundation was one of the first of its kind to embody both aspects of healthcare. amfAR has three headquarters, located in New York City; Washington, D.C.; and Bangkok, Thailand. amfAR spurs research and development through providing grants to organizations and researchers, and fellowships to early-career scientists through the Mathilde Krim Fellowships in Basic Biomedical Research. amfAR has provided over 3,800 grants to research teams across the world and has invested over $900 million to research aiming to effectively treat HIV and AIDS-related illness, as well as to cure HIV and other global health threats. amfAR's funds historically have gone to funding research, and as a result have helped pioneer community-based clinical research trials in the 1980s, as well as the involvement of AIDS patients in the drug approval process (see also: Denver Principles). Changes in leadership have marked changes in focus, resulting in shifts from public health outreach (needle exchange program...