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Who We Are

From the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, researchers and physicians at UC San Diego have been on the front lines, striving to understand and defeat a terrible foe.

In 1996, the AIDS Research Institute (ARI), an Organized Research Unit (ORU), was established by the Regents of the University of California to coordinate the diverse HIV/AIDS research and clinical activities at UC San Diego. In 2017 the ARI evolved into The HIV Institute to acknowledge our investigators' and clinicians' focus on preventing, treating, and curing HIV before it progresses to AIDS. Today’s epidemic is much different from 36 years ago. This new name reflects the progress we’ve made over the epidemic and reinforces that it’s now possible for individuals to live long and healthy lives with HIV.

We facilitate three-way communication between researchers, clinicians, and our San Diego community with the ultimate goal of devising innovative and much-needed approaches to prevent, diagnose, treat and ultimately cure HIV/AIDS.

Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, sometimes described as battleground medicine, when physicians were caring for patients who were rapidly dying of an unknown disease, our clinicians and researchers have been focused on characterizing and curing HIV infection, as well as preventing transmission to those not infected.

Our pursuit of these goals has led to groundbreaking, innovative, and highly collaborative research involving scientists from multiple San Diego institutions. In addition, our discoveries have contributed to research breakthroughs in other fields, such as cancer.