This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant (R21) applications for hypothesis-driven basic research to increase our understanding of persistent HIV-1 infection in patients under highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART). The emphasis of this initiative is on the development of new ideas and approaches in HIV-1 persistence including model and assay development that may directly inform future studies on the design of therapeutic strategies to achieve long term remission without treatment or a complete eradication of residual virus and complete cure for HIV infection and AIDS. These studies may involve considerable risk but may lead to a breakthrough in a particular area, or to the development of novel techniques, agents, methodologies, models, or applications that could have a major impact on a field of biomedical, behavioral, or clinical research.

Further information: PAR-14-248