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The remedy? Glycerol Monolaurate (GML ). This compound is mostly used to give food such as icecream and gravy a longer shelf life.

According to one of the researchers:

"It's used in foods like ice cream and gravy. It's in cosmetics as an emulsifying agent and as a mild antimicrobial agent. It's also in breast milk so it is a naturally occurring compound," said Pat Schlievert, who has been studying GML in his U of M research lab since 1992.

This is how it worked. In monkeys really. Monkeys treated with GML were not infected by Rhesus Macaques, the cousin of HIV/AIDS. GML works as a blocker

Researchers inserted GML mixed with KY Warming gel into the vagina's of five Rhesus Macaques. They then exposed the monkeys to massive amounts of HIV. Two weeks later, they tested the animals to see if they had contracted HIV.

"Ordinarily when we expose these animals to these high doses two weeks later an infected animal will have hundreds of millions of copies of virus floating around in its bloodstream. And all of the GML treated animals had nothing at two weeks," Schlievert said. 

Word of caution from the docs. Do not get your hopes too high. The research is still in its preliminary stages, and only  studied a few monkeys.

Still, there are folks who find this finding intoxicating. Because poor people all over the world can afford it. Hillier is the principle investigator for the Microbicide Trials Network, an HIV/AIDS clinical trials network established in 2006.

"The thing that's intoxicating about the idea is that something that's very inexpensive that could be used very widely and not have significant toxicity would be a tremendous benefit to women and men around the world in slowing down the epidemic of HIV.

If successful this GML compound could find its way in lubricants.

If you are subscribed to the journal "Nature" find it. Read more from Minnesota Public Radio here . 

And before this discovery is made remember the best way to protect against HIV/AIDS is abstinence, and condoms.