(Catharine Paddock/ Medical News Today) — Researchers in Canada have developed a vaginal implant that aims to protect women from becoming diagnosed with HIV.
In a paper now published in the Journal of Controlled Release, they report how they successfully tested the vaginal implant in laboratory animals.
HIV, which is the virus that causes AIDS, hijacks activated immune T cells to use their machinery to complete its life cycle — that is, to produce copies of itself and spread. A major site of transmission is in the female genital tract.
The new vaginal implant slowly releases drugs that keep the T cells of the female genital tract in a resting, or “quiescent,” state, which is much less productive for the virus.
Unlike activated T cells, quiescent T cells block the early stage of the HIV life cycle, “resulting in a largely inefficient [transmission].” (…)