Hertzog receives Gates funding to investigate link between contraceptives and HIV susceptibility

MIMR-PHI Institute's Centre for Innate Immunity and Infectious Diseases Head, Professor Paul Herztog has received a $1M AUD grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to investigate the relationship between some oral contraceptives and an increased susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV.

In 2013, his team characterised an important, naturally occurring immune cytokine in the female reproductive tract which regulates immunity to sexually transmitted infections. They had previously discovered and named it Interferon Epsilon (IFN-epsilon). This world-first discovery was published in the prestigious journal Science and it has many implications for future studies into the prevention of diseases of the female reproductive tract, including STIs.

Progesterone-based contraceptives have been linked to an increased susceptibility to STIs, which Professor Hertzog hypothesises is caused by progesterone supressing the expression of IFN-epsilon in the female reproductive tract, rendering women taking progesterone-containing contraceptives more susceptible to infections.

“Certain progesterone-based contraceptive formulations are one of the cheapest and most widely used contraceptives globally. Our study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is the first of its kind aimed at conclusively proving that progesterone-based contraceptives are linked to supressing IFN-epsilon expression. If we can confirm this then we can investigate potential solutions and, potentially, how to reduce the high global incidence of HIV infection,” said Prof Hertzog.

To do this, Professor Hertzog will lead a team of international research collaborators including scientist Professor Sam Mesiano from Case Western Reserve University and clinician-researcher Professor Sharon Achilles from the University of Pittsburgh, to conduct a comprehensive 18-month investigation into the mechanism behind progesterone regulation of IFN-epsilon.  The team will use a diversity of patient samples to screen for selective progesterone receptor modulators (SPRMs) to determine if they can maintain contraceptive efficacy without repressing IFM-epsilon expression.

Bill and Melinda Gates have identified HIV as a major priority for their Foundation and believe that new tools are needed to defeat the pandemic, and investment in research and development for new products are essential.

Currently more than 33 million people are living with HIV and, while huge progress has been made in increasing access to HIV treatment in the past decade, the pandemic continues to outpace efforts to control it, with the number of newly infected people each year outnumbering those who gain access to treatment by two to one. Children are being born with HIV at a rate of 300,000 per year and half of them won’t reach their second birthday.