For a sizeable number of scientists from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections was over before it began. 

The trial known as VOICE—for Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic—was launched in 2009 to evaluate the efficacy of daily topical and oral antiviral drugs in preventing HIV transmission among high-risk heterosexual women from three African countries. 

Much of the recent surge in HIV cure research in the clinical setting has focused on HIV-infected adults. This makes sense, since much of it has been inspired by the celebrated case of Timothy Brown, the so-called “Berlin patient,” who has been free of HIV since he received a stem cell transplant from a donor naturally resistant to HIV.