"The United States should be at the forefront of new discoveries into how to put people into long-term remission without requiring lifelong therapies — or better yet, eliminate it completely," Obama said.

Mostly directed from expiring AIDS research grants, the money will be spent on attempting the complete management of infections and eradicating the virus altogether.  This news comes as the scientific community feels cautiously optimistic about the proximate curing of the disease and as new HIV infections increased 12 percent among men who have sex with men in the most recent figures.

Jack Whitescarver, Ph.D., director of the Office of AIDS Research, a component of the Office of the Director of NIH, said, “We have listened very carefully to the scientific consensus of experts from within the NIH and around the world. We have been building the portfolio of HIV cure research over the past few years, and now is the time to accelerate our research focused specifically toward the goal of sustained or lifelong remission, in which patients control or even eliminate HIV without the need for lifelong antiretroviral therapy.”

These research initiatives are also paired with pledges of $5 billion over the next three years to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria if other countries contribute twice that amount, along with legislation enacted last month that extends the 10-year-old President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, started by President Bush.

According to NPR: "Obama boasted that PEPFAR has exceeded the goal — thought to be ambitious when he set it on World AIDS Day two years ago – of getting anti-HIV treatment to 6 million people in developing countries. 'Today I'm proud to announce that we've not only reached our goal, we've exceeded our treatment goal,' he said. 'We've helped 6.7 million people receive life-saving treatment, and we're going to keep at it.'"

For more information on the initiative visit NIH.gov.