The HHV-6 Foundation is pleased to announce the creation of a new $250,000 research fund to honor the work of Dharam Ablashi, the co-discoverer of HHV-6. The gift was made possible by a generous donation from a patient family in appreciation of Dharam’s outstanding service to the field of HHV-6 research over four decades. The HHV-6 Foundation has also launched a fundraising campaign with the goal of increasing the fund to $500,000. The research fund will offer pilot grants of up to $25,000 each to investigators seeking to gather preliminary data before embarking on larger studies.
Dr. Ablashi has published over 100 articles on HHV-6 and other viruses and discovered HHV-6 in the bone marrow of AIDS patients while working in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Gallo at the National Cancer Institute. He is well known in the virology community for his enthusiastic mentoring of junior investigators and for offering his time to advise both physicians and patients about the nature of HHV-6. He was a co-founder of a number of important organizations such as the EBV Association and the IACFS/ME, and he volunteers his time to serve the HHV-6 Foundation as Scientific Director.
“We are delighted with this acknowledgement of Dharam’s extraordinary efforts and are deeply grateful for his service to the research community,” said Executive Director Kristin Loomis.
Although the Foundation is interested in supporting quality projects in all research relating to HHV-6, areas of special interest include:
- Biopsy studies by IHC and PCR
- HHV-6 & autoimmunity
- HHV-6 latency
- HHV-6 & mitochondrial disease
- HHV-6 reactivation & fatigue
- Antiviral testing of novel compounds
- Novel assays
- CNS disease associations
- Chromosomally Integrated HHV-6
- HHV-6B & acute GVHD
- HHV-6 in heart disease
- HHV-6 as a trigger for malignancy
The first deadline for the grants program is January 31, 2017. To learn more about making an application, see the Grants Page.