Women’s Sexual Health: Understanding vaginal immunity, microbiota and risk for STIs 

Demystifying Medicine Seminar with Dr. Charu Kaushic, a Professor in the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
Dr. Kaushic is the Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)-Institute of Infection and Immunity. She describes her research in women’s reproductive health, specifically basic and translational research examining susceptibility and immune responses to sexually transmitted viruses.
The seminar is moderated by Demystifying Medicine Peer Tutors and co-facilitators Vaishnavi Kumaran and Aaron Hayat, both graduate students at the McMaster Immunology Research Centre and at the Firestone Institute for Respiratory Health, McMaster University
The objectives of this talk are to:
1. Review the physiology of the female genital tract and discuss the role immune responses play in maintaining the normal functions of reproduction and protection.
2. Understand the biological factors that regulate susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections and discuss the continuum of risk.
3. Examine new evidence regarding the relationship between female sex hormones, vaginal microbiota, and immune responses and how this affects HIV-1 susceptibility in women.
Copyright McMaster University 2020.