Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

Doris Duke Medical Research Institute

Home of the HIV Pathogenesis Program and
Other Key AIDS Projects

Durban, South Africa

The foundation’s first major international HIV/AIDS grantmaking efforts were focused at the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal – the only medical school in the South African province hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic.

The foundation awarded grants totaling $1.8 million to help build the new Doris Duke Medical Research Institute, which is the first building to be constructed since the medical school was founded in 1950.

The Doris Duke Medical Research Institute is a crucial component of the University of KwaZulu-Natal's commitment to expand research and training in AIDS. It houses a number of AIDS research projects, including a bilateral HIV Pathogenesis Program (HPP) between the Mandela School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School.

The foundation has committed $2.25 million to support the training and research aspects of the HPP for a four-year period. Although based in Durban, the HPP includes research and training collaborations at other institutions in South Africa: the University of Cape Town, the Perinatal HIV Research Unit of the University of Witwatersrand, and the National Institute of Communicable Diseases.

Touring a DDMRI laboratory during the institute's official opening in July 2003 (left to right): Joan Spero, President of DDCF; Elaine Gallin, Director for Medical Research at DDCF; Photini Kiepiela, Head of the Pediatric Immunology Laboratory; and Barry Kistnasamy, Dean of the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine