Research Overview
NIAID conducts and supports research to prevent, diagnose, and treat infectious and immunological diseases that affect the health of women and girls.
HIV/AIDS
NIAID’s extensive research on HIV/AIDS has contributed to the following advances:
- First evidence that an antiretroviral-based, vaginally formulated topical microbicide may protect against rectal transmission of HIV
- Discovery that infection with herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2) may increase the risk of HIV infection
- Giving daily nevirapine, an antiretroviral drug, to breastfed infants through six weeks of age can decrease mother-to-child transmission of HIV
NIAID’s HIV/AIDS research includes ongoing projects such as the following:
- Women’s Interagency HIV Study (WIHS), the largest observational study of HIV-infected women to investigate factors like how AIDS develops, the effectiveness of therapy and treatment, the influence of hormones and aging, and more
- Women’s HIV SeroIncidence Study (ISIS), an observational study of women at high risk for HIV acquisition in the United States to evaluate risk factors such as alcohol and drug use, domestic violence, and mental health status, which will begin enrolling 2,000 women in 2009
- Centers for AIDS Research (CFAR), an NIH program to enhance and coordinate quality AIDS research projects
- Research studies on the following:
- Impact of antiretroviral therapy and highly active antiretroviral therapy on HIV-infected women, as well as gender differences in responses to these treatments
- Older populations of HIV-infected women
- Co-infections and their impact on HIV disease progression
- Complications and sides effects of a vaccine against human papillomavirus in HIV-infected women
- Immunology of the female genital tract
- Topical microbicides that safely prevent HIV transmission, with several microbicides currently in clinical trials in the United States and around the world
- Effects of the antiretroviral Efavirenz in the last trimester of pregnancy and other safe treatments for HIV-positive women during pregnancy
Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs)
NIAID supports research to develop more effective prevention and treatment approaches to controlling STIs. NIAID has contributed to advances such as these:
- Decoding the genome of the parasite that causes trichomoniasis, revealing potential clues as to why the parasite has exhibited drug resistance and suggesting possible pathways for new treatments, diagnostics, and vaccines
- In a mouse model of chlamydia infection, removing an extra piece of DNA, called a plasmid, made the bacteria causing the infection less virulent and kept it from affecting the reproductive tract, suggesting a possible vaccine strategy against human disease
Ongoing research on STIs includes the following:
- Search for safe and effective vaccines, topical microbicides, therapeutics, and strategies for preventing and treating STIs and resulting conditions
- Studies on the impact of STIs on various populations
- Development of better diagnostic tests
- Clinical trials for the prevention of genital herpes, such as the Herpevac Phase III clinical trial with more than 8,300 women enrolled at approximately 50 sites in the United States and Canada
- Development of cost-effective methods of screening for chlamydia
- Development of a vaccine for chlamydia
Autoimmune Diseases
NIAID supports research that aims to increase the health and well-being of women by developing new methods to prevent and treat autoimmune diseases and prevent the immunologic causes of infertility. NIAID’s research has resulted in advances such as the following:
- Discovery of how the FDA-approved Copaxone works to reduce symptoms of multiple sclerosis, offering insight that may lead to the development of new and more effective forms of the drug
- Identification of a novel protein, called AHR, which may be a target for therapeutic drugs for multiple sclerosis
- Identification of a new target for therapies against autoimmune diseases like lupus: two proteins which, when absent from human B cells, made B cells less tolerant of their own proteins and thus exacerbated autoimmune disease
- A fetus lacks a certain set a proteins, called major histocompatibility class I proteins, which prohibits a mother’s immune system from identifying the fetus as foreign and attacking it, findings which can provide insight on failed pregnancies as well as organ transplantation and autoimmune diseases
Ongoing research includes the following:
- Identification of several genes associated with inherited risk for developing multiple sclerosis
- Design of therapeutic interventions against lupus
- A therapy that can replace malfunctioning immune systems in scleroderma patients with immature immune cells that develop into healthy immune systems
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