Grant: Operating Grant

One of the hallmarks of HIV disease is the inappropriate over-activation of the immune response which can lead to serious detrimental effects to the infected person including providing more targets for the HIV virus to infect. Our research group has identified commercial sex workers from Nairobi Kenya who, despite counseling and provision of condoms, are highly exposed to HIV. Amazingly, despite years of such high risk activity they remain HIV uninfected. We have recently determined, quite unexpectedly, that a common feature of these women is that their immune systems remain calm and are not as highly activated as women who do become HIV infected. We have termed this phenomenon Immune Quiescence. This study proposes to investigate the factors that are unique in the HIV exposed uninfected women that cause their immune systems to resist inappropriate activation and assess the consequences of that lower immune activation. As sex work is a power immune stimulant itself, we will study the effect on the immune system of stopping sex work for a period of time. If we can understand what is driving the state of Immune Quiescence perhaps we can determine how to mimic that state in other at-risk individuals and thereby protect them from acquiring HIV.