Center for HIV and Opioid mediated neuro-Inflammaging Research (CHOIR)

The advent of antiretrovirals has transformed HIV into a chronic but manageable disease as infected individuals are living longer lives. Paradoxically though, increased life spans coupled with long-term use of antiretrovirals are often also superimposed with abuse of drugs, a comorbidity of HIV-1, leads to prolonged low-level inflammation that culminated into accelerated aging. The UNMC CHOIR aims to build and nurture a collaborative research environment that promotes HIV and drug abuse research in inflammation and aging at UNMC and globally.

CHOIR is supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The theme of this Center is to understand the underpinnings of neuroinflammation-mediated cognitive aging or “Neuro-inflammaging” in the context of HIV and drug (opioid) abuse from the cellular level to behavior of the organism as a whole. The Center consists of five cores headed by experts in the field:

• Molecular, Extracellular vesicles, and Therapeutics (MET)
• Behavior and Research Design (BARD)
• Virus, Cell, Human, Animal, and Tissue (VCHAT)
• Bioinformatics and Metabolomics (BAM)
• Longitudinal Neuroimaging (LNI)

Along with the above five cores, a Pilot Research Project Core is in place to stimulate new and innovative work and provide research opportunities and experiences to new and/or early career investigators.

Cite the CHOIR grant in publications

“The project described was supported by the NIH, National Institute on Drug Abuse (P30 DAXXXX). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.”

Shared Resource verbiage: allows for measurement of productivity and documentation of services. Include in Acknowledgement Section and Methods section: “The authors acknowledge the following Shared Resources facilities __<list resource/core separated by commas>__ at the Center for HIV and Opioid-Mediated Neuro-Inflammaging Research P30 DA XXXXX.”