BioCentury
ARTICLE | Cover Story

New roadblock to HIV infection

February 14, 2008 8:00 AM UTC

The goal of developing an effective vaginal microbicide against HIV infection has eluded researchers ever since the first potential compound assessed, nonoxynol-9, proved to actually increase infection rates. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers led by Philippe Gallay at The Scripps Research Institute reported that syndecan-3, expressed on dendritic cells, presents a previously unknown route for HIV infection in vaginal mucosa. This finding may provide a strategy for developing another generation of microbicides that more completely address the process of HIV infection.

Development of microbicides has been slow in part because of a lack of validated animal models, markers for activity or true placebos. But development has also been slow because of the complex but incomplete picture of exactly how HIV infects vaginal mucosal cells...