San Francisco AIDS Foundation history

The Third World AIDS Advisory Task Force (TWAATF) was the first organization in San Francisco to focus on the needs of people of color affected by AIDS, founded approximately 1985.

The Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) was established in 1986 as a program of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). CAPS mission was “to conduct rigorous theory-based research that will have maximum impact on the theory, practice, and policy of AIDS prevention.”

The cancerous tumor that causes lesions would later become synonymous with AIDS. The man pictured in this photo joined the very first AIDS Walk San Francisco in Golden Gate Park in July 1987.

Materials cover the conference from the first pre-announcement in 1988 to the Final Report and “Letters of Appreciation.” There is also a small amount of correspondence and ephemera in the collection.

Correspondence, grant and project proposals, notes, research papers and ephemera connected to Doctor Ziegler’s work dealing with AIDS related cancers, particularly Kaposi’s Sarcoma, and his work as co-chair of the Sixth Annual International AIDS Conference, which was held in San Francisco in 1990.

In 1992, he joined Genentech to develop vaccines and later co-founded VaxGen.

(c) San Francisco AIDS Foundation 1993, Photo by Rink Foto

Congressperson Nancy Pelosi gave tribute to SFAF in October 2004, praising then-executive director Pat Christen.

President Barack Obama signs the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009, with Ernest Hopkins, our Legislative Director of Federal Affairs, present at the bill signing.

SFAF will open a wellness center in the Castro District in 2015.