USC Receives AIDS Funding From NIH to Continue Clinical Trials Unit at Medical Center

June 26, 2007

Los Angeles, June 26, 2007 - The University of Southern California (USC) announced today that the National Institutes of Health awarded $1.53 million to USC Rand Schrader AIDS Clinical Trial Group’s (ACTG) Clinical Trials Unit (CTU) at LAC+USC Medical Center. The CTU will be funded for 7 years beginning July 1, 2007.

"We are thrilled to be able to continue offering cutting edge research therapies to patients at USC¹s Rand Schrader Clinic," says Fred Sattler, M.D., chief of infectious diseases at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “We remain enormously indebted to the County of Los Angeles for our long and highly successful partnership in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”

The Rand Schrader HIV Clinic, which opened in 1986, provides antiretroviral drugs to about 3,000 uninsured and largely minority people living with HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles. For the past few years, USC has led the nation in enrollment of minorities into important ACTG treatment and prevention studies. More than 200 of its patients participate in the ACTG clinical trials at any given time.

"The funding will enable the medical center, located in my district, to continue to provide first-rate health care to HIV/AIDS patients in the community,” says Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard.  “The NIH-funded clinical trials are truly lifesaving for the patients enrolled, many of whom are underserved and would otherwise lack access to much-needed therapies."

The Clinical Trials Unit has already begun enrolling new patients into these studies.