[Press kit]

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THE AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR AIDS RESEARCH
MISSION AND HISTORY
The mission of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR) is to prevent death and
disease associated with HIV/AIDS and to foster sound AIDS-related public policies. AmFAR
seeks to accomplish its mission through
Sscientific research contributing to the development of vaccine methodologies to prevent
transmission of HIV;
Sscientific research contributing to the development of effective treatments and immune
restoration therapies that, in combination, would constitute a clinical cure for HIV/AIDS;
Ssocial research, policy analysis and advocacy for public policies on legal and ethical
issues in HIV/AIDS, including the protection of the civil rights of people threatened with
the loss of these rights because of their HIV status or perceptions about risk for acquiring
HIV, and for sound public policies on allocation of societal resources and qualitative
aspects of resource commitments; and
Sdelivery of accurate information about the HIV/AIDS epidemic to the public, to the AIDS
community, to scientists and health care professionals, and to others (e.g., government
officials and the media) in need of such information.
Funded by private philanthropic contributions, AmFAR, since its founding in 1985, has invested
over $144 million in support of its programs, primarily through grants to more than 1,700
research teams.
When the first cases of what would come to be known as AIDS were reported in 1981, Mathilde
Krim, Ph.D., a researcher at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, sensed that
these cases posed not only a new challenge for medical science, but also a potential threat to
public health. Even as she and several of her colleagues noted with alarm how slowly the federal
government was reacting to clear signals of a serious, national health emergency, they also
perceived that much of the general public and government leadership were predisposed to ignore
the emerging epidemic because it first appeared primarily among gay men and injection drug
users. In response, this small group of visionaries in 1983 established the AIDS Medical
Foundation (AMF) to support science-based research on AIDS and to provide accurate scientific
information to an uninformed public and government and private agencies. AmFAR resulted
from the unification in 1985 of two not-for-profit organizations, AMF, incorporated in New York
in April 1983, and the National AIDS Research Foundation, incorporated in California in August
1985. First based in California, AmFAR transferred its legal domicile to New York in 1989,

using the initial incorporation documents of AMF, making it AMF's legal successor.