Historical perspective on HIV‐exposed seronegative individuals: has nature done the experiment for us?

Multiple and frequent exposure to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) does not necessarily result in HIV infection. Approximately 15% of HIV exposed seronegative individuals repeatedly resist infection, a phenomenon that has been observed in all investigated HIV‐exposed cohorts. This brief report provides a limited historic perspective of the discovery of these cohorts and outlines some of the immunologic and genetic parameters that are associated with resistance. We raise the possibility that assessing immunologic parameters of the phenomenon might provide insights that might be relevant for effective AIDS vaccine design.