This study’s novel findings may have been enabled by its unique design. Unlike prior GWAS of HIV acquisition, the discovery UHS data set matched HIV- IDU controls to the HIV+ IDU cases on several HIV risk behaviors (see S1 Methods and S1 Fig.), largely equating measurable risk of HIV exposure within this high-risk cohort (S1 Table) and, in theory, improving our statistical power to detect genetic associations with HIV acquisition.
