MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?
Response: Our studies suggest that vaginal epithelial dendritic cells may be the initial cell that is infected after women are exposed to the virus during sexual contact. In the absence of a HIV vaccine, developing novel ways to prevent infection of vaginal epithelial dendritic cells may eliminate sexual transmission to women.
MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work?Response: We are starting to explore if there are similar cells in foreskins. This is important because it has been well documented that circumcision reduces risk of HIV acquisition. We hypothesize that circumcision eliminates the epithelial dendritic cells and thus HIV transmission is lower