Inducing Immune Quiescence the Genital Tract With ASA

There are 33.4 million individuals living with HIV/AIDS worldwide. Despite successful HIV prevention strategies such as condom use and reduction of sexual partners, HIV continues to spread at an alarming rate. In 2010, 2.6 millions of new infections were detected. In Sub-Saharan Africa, women represent the two-third of all new infections1. Despite the efforts of the scientific community, there is still no commercial vaccine or microbicide available. To explain this natural protection against HIV, different mechanisms have been identified. These women have a unique immune phenotype that we called Immune Quiescence. This phenotype is characterized by lower expression of genes involved in cellular activation, lower resting levels of inflammatory cytokine production, lower level of systemic activated T cells, increased levels of systemic T regulatory, increased production of anti-viral anti-protease serpins at the female genital tract and reduced numbers of HIV target cells (mainly CD4+ CCR5+ T cells) in the FGT This project aims to induce an Immune Quiescence phenotype (decreasing immune activation) to prevent HIV infection