Foundation Seeks Promising Projects : AIDS Research Money to Be Awarded

The American Foundation for AIDS Research will begin soliciting grant applications this week for between $1 million and $2 million that the group plans to quickly distribute to scientists working on the deadly ailment.

“We expect to have the checks in the mail by May 1,” said Dr. Mathilde Krim, a viral disease and cancer specialist from St. Lukes-Roosevelt Hospital in New York and the foundation’s co-chair.

The group plans to award grants semiannually, with a maximum $50,000 per grant, for research into acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The private foundation is able to speed money to promising research efforts far more quickly than the federal government, whose grant process can take a year or more.

Funding proposals will be solicited in advertisements to be published in Science and Nature, two leading scientific journals.

Krim spoke here at a press conference at which actress Elizabeth Taylor, the foundation’s honorary chair, accepted a $100,000 contribution from Transamerica Corp.’s life insurance group.

‘No Time to Wait’

The gift, presented by David Carpenter, chairman and chief executive of Transamerica’s life insurance unit, is the largest corporate contribution yet to the foundation, and it “goes a long way in broadening our base of donors,” said Peter F. Carpenter, a member of the foundation’s board and executive vice president of Alza Corp. He called the foundation “a way to get research moving quickly, because there’s no time to wait.”

Last year, Transamerica paid $2.7 million in claims for AIDS-related deaths. In October, it became the first major insurer to screen applicants for exposure to the suspected AIDS virus. The firm has since denied 22 applications on that basis.

David Carpenter, Los Angeles Mayor Thomas Bradley and Walter Weisman, president and chief executive officer of American Medical International, are scheduled to host a breakfast in Los Angeles next month in an attempt to enlist other corporate leaders in the battle against AIDS.

American Foundation for AIDS Research was formed from the merger of the 3-year-old AIDS Medical Foundation in New York and the newer National AIDS Research Foundation in Los Angeles.

The new group raised $650,000 in its first three months of operation, including a $250,000 gift from actor Rock Hudson, who subsequently died of AIDS. It also is receiving all proceeds from the hit single “That’s What Friends Are For,” which has just broken the 1-million copy sales mark, Taylor said.