The Tennessee Center for AIDS Research (TN-CFAR)

The Tennessee Center for AIDS Research leverages complementary strengths of its four partner institutions to have broad and substantial impact on the HIV epidemic. Located in Nashville, TN, our CFAR was established in 2015, under the leadership of Associate Professor John Koethe. The partnership includes a research-intensive medical institution (Vanderbilt University Medical Center, VUMC), a historically black medical college (Meharry Medical College, MMC), an academically engaged state health department (Tennessee Department of Health, TDH), and a sophisticated HIV community-based organization (Nashville CARES). This partnership has fostered collaborations that would be unimaginable without CFAR. Decades of research have generated knowledge and tools with the potential to prevent all new HIV infections, to ultimately end the HIV epidemic in the United States and worldwide, and to improve the lives of people living with HIV. To date, reality has fallen short of these goals, in part due to pressing unmet needs. The Tennessee Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) is located in the Southeastern United States, the region with the greatest number of new HIV infections, and of persons living with HIV. This CFAR has fostered collaborations that would be unimaginable without CFAR, focused toward ending the HIV epidemic. The Tennessee Center for AIDS Research is primarily supported by National Institutes of Health grant P30 AI110527.