The first project that we did together was funded through something called a Fogarty International Collaborative Research Award, an AIDS FIRCA it’s called. And that actually came sort of through NIMH to us, this Fogarty proposal, and those are actually very small developmental studies to just get a partnership organized, get it established, and do a small pilot study. And the study itself was an assessment of microbicide acceptability, and microbicides are products that are currently in clinical trials that women can use for AIDS prevention, a lot like vaginal creams and foams that are used now for spermicide only these are microbicide.

And so we were looking at whether or not women could use these in various contexts in which they have sex with different kinds of partners, and that was the focus of the study in Hartford. So that was our first study together to develop our consortium and explore possible work together in this context with sex workers in southern China. And it went quite well I have to say, so the follow-up study used that information.

The pilot study was crucial for several really important reasons. First of all it did establish deep relationships between the researchers in China and the local people involved in public health and then our research team from the U.S., which without that it can be a very frustrating experience, particularly in a foreign context, but even in any kind of a new context. Setting up the local partnership was really essential, really critical to do.