"I think we handle it better now than we did inthe past," Hirsch says.

Groopman, who also sits on the board, says, "Ithink most thoughtful researchers who have directinvolvement with people with AIDS clearly feel thefrustration and pain that the patients have ifthey are prevented from getting access."

And while Immel may disagree about Harvard'sunderstanding of community needs, he concedes thatthe mere existence of a board is a step in theright direction.

"There's a sense that the doors are open and wecan talk," he says.

Social and Legal Issues

Far less controversial but nonetheless uniqueis Harvard's work on the social and legal issuesassociated with the AIDS crisis.

Out of the Center for Policy and Education havecome conferences on alternatives to hospital-basedcare and new reimbursement mechanisms to helppatients set off treatment costs.

Doctors are also studying patterns ofdiscrimination against AIDS victims, designingeducational programs for schools and the workplaceand assessing the effectiveness of current AIDSlegislation.

But the institute's hidden strength, many say,is its ability to communicate its researchglobally. Thanks to the International AIDS Center(IAC), which is also part of the Institute,Harvard doctors can work on controlling AIDS inforeign countries, both by travelling abroad forresearch and training foreign doctors. Today,Harvard's work can be found in such countries asSenegal, Zaire, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

Jonathan M. Mann '69, who last month left hisstewardship of the World Health Organization'sGlobal Program on AIDS to direct the IAC, says hefeels strongly the IAC should go beyond merelystudying the disease to understanding the issuesraised by the crisis.

"I see the IAC as doing research and providingservice, but also helping develop key issues ofglobal importance that apply not only to AIDS,"Mann says.

Of course, because scientists still have muchto learn about the AIDS virus, discoveries oftencome from where they are least expected. Thissummer's discovery, in fact, came not from theAIDS Institute but rather the Harvard-affiliatedDana Farber Cancer Institute.

Now, the three scientists who discovered thatthe molecules called CDFs keep the AIDS virus frombinding to human cells--Professor of PediatricsSteven J. Burakoff, Professor of Medicine RobertW. Finberg and Professor of Chemistry Stuart L.Schreiber--are working to take their discoverybeyond the test tube.

Current experiments include tagging CPFmolecules with radioactive chemicals to betterunderstand how the drug interacts with the virus,Burakoff says. In addition, he says, theresearchers will try to implant both human immunecells and the AIDS virus into mice with no immunesystem, to see whether the CDF molecule reallyblocks the disease from spreading.

"Just because you can block something in a testtube doesn't mean it works on a patient," Finbergsays.