JAMES CURRAN

The two men had much in common. They grew up in the Detroit area, attended rival high schools, and received Ivy League educations. At 36, both led full lives—one was an entertainer, the other a CDC epidemiologist. They met in June 1981 at a New York City hospital, where the performer was being treated for Kaposi’s sarcoma, a rare form of cancer.

“I remember him. He was a smart kid,” says James Curran of the first patient he met with AIDS.

It was a troubling encounter since no one knew why the man was fatally ill. Curran had gone to New York to investigate the Kaposi’s outbreak among healthy homosexual men. The subsequent case definition for disease surveillance put in place by Curran’s CDC team was adopted worldwide, allowing early and consistent recognition of the global AIDS epidemic.

Three decades later, Curran remains one of the world’s leading experts on the disease. After joining Rollins as dean in 1995, he and other Emory experts formed an AIDS interest group to share ideas. That group gave rise to the Emory Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) to coordinate and grow HIV/AIDS science. Today, the Emory CFAR has 150 investigators and $70 million in annual funding from NIH and other sources. Curran leads the charge as one of three co-directors and principal investigator.

Administratively based in the RSPH, the Emory CFAR emphasizes prevention—health education, risk reduction among adolescents and adults, development and testing of HIV vaccines and behavioral interventions, and prevention and treatment of retroviral infections and tuberculosis to prevent complications from these diseases. CFAR investigators conduct training and research locally and nationally and in Africa, India, and Eastern Europe.

Today, Curran would have much to offer the patient in New York. “I would tell him that we know the disease is caused by a virus, HIV, and there are good therapies for treatment,” says Curran. “He would have to take drugs every day but would live a long and fairly normal life. And he would have every reason to be optimistic.”