In the weeks following the Banda Aceh tsunami, public figures, private founda-
tions, individuals, and governments around the world rallied to assist the victims of that natural disaster. Significantly, the salient qualities of the Indonesian tsunami—which arose without warning, struck distant countries before they could grid themselves against its impact, disproportionately claimed the lives of women and children, and destroyed the social infrastructure of the areas it ravaged—are also the salient qualities of the AIDS pandemic.

In the case of the tsunami, of course, the destructive agent was water, not an unseen virus, and the impact was felt in minutes, not decades. Terrible as the damage was, and devastating as it was to the families of the 170,000 victims, the tsunami was a one-time event. HIV claims 170,000 lives every ten days.
Over the past three months we have watched well intentioned individuals and institutions contribute billions of dollars for tsunami relief, even as our own government has trimmed spending for AIDS services here and abroad. The juxtaposition is a telling one—a reminder of the daunting task we face in trying to raise money to combat the most heavily stigmatized disease of our time, an epoch that future historians will surely call the Age of AIDS.

This reality makes us all the more grateful for the support we do receive. That backing comes from enlightened foundations like those established by James Pendleton and the McCarthy family, from grassroots fundraising efforts like those organized by Charity Treks and by Terri Weinstein and her colleagues in Chicago, and from individual donors whose gifts range in size from less than $100 to more than $10,000.

This year the UCLA AIDS Institute will distribute more than $784,329 in grants to researchers affiliated with the Institute. These grants support specific projects, like vaccine research, and specific labs, like the Anton-McGowan lab, which is spearheading an international program to develop safe and effective microbicides—agents that will, we hope, substantially reduce the risk of HIV transmission during intercourse. As the list opposite indicates, the Institute also makes scores of grants to individual researchers, some of them members of the Institute’s faculty, some of them postdoctoral and graduate students, all of them engaged in projects that advance our understanding of how HIV is transmitted, treated, or prevented. These grants are made in the fields of basic science, genetics, virology, clinical research, behavioral science, training and education-and the Institute is justifiably proud of the fact that this year it has been able to fund every single grant application that received a passing grade from the peer-review panels that score these applications (see Grant Recipients).

Each year UCLA receives a substantial sum from the National Institutes of Health to support ongoing research at the AIDS Institute—and a more modest allocation to cover what the NIH calls “development,” a term that covers everything from the recruitment of new faculty members to the testing of new approaches to prevention and treatment of HIV infection. For 2005, that allocation is $234,194-$550,135 less than the amount the Institute will be awarding in grants to its members. The difference between what the federal government gives the Institute for development and what the Institute gives out to faculty members is covered by gifts from foundations like those named above, by monies raised by dedicated all volunteer organizations like Charity Treks and Terri Weinstein’s private army, and by people like you, who understand that we have a collective responsibility to bring an end to the silent tsunamis that are sweeping over every inhabited continent on earth, bringing infection and death to places no tidal bore could ever reach.