Infectious Diseases News

June 10, 2025

Top Headlines

New mRNA Vaccine Is More Effective and Less Costly to Develop

June 3, 2025 — A new type of mRNA vaccine is more scalable and adaptable to continuously evolving viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 and H5N1, according to a new ...

Synthetic Compound Shows Promise Against Multidrug Resistance

June 2, 2025 — Researchers have synthesized a new compound called infuzide that shows activity against resistant strains of ...

HIV Discovery Could Open Door to Long-Sought Cure

May 29, 2025 — New HIV research shows that small changes in the virus affect how quickly or slowly it replicates and how easily it can reawaken in the body. These insights bring researchers closer to finding ways to flush out the dormant virus and eliminate it for ...

Earlier Measles Vaccine Could Help Curb Global Outbreak

May 29, 2025 — The global measles outbreak must trigger an urgent debate into whether a vaccine should be recommended earlier to better protect against the highly contagious disease during infancy, a new review ...

Zika Virus Uses Cells' 'Self-Care' System to Turn Against Host

May 27, 2025 — A new study reveals the biological secret to the Zika virus's infectious success: Zika uses host cells' own 'self-care' system of clearing away useless molecules to suppress the host proteins that the virus has employed to get into those cells in ...

How Cholera Bacteria Outsmart Viruses

May 22, 2025 — Researchers uncover a notorious cholera strain that contains sophisticated immune systems to fend off viruses, which potentially helped it to fuel a devastating epidemic across Latin ...

A Leap Forward in Transparent Antimicrobial Coatings

May 21, 2025 — Hydrogen boride (HB) nanosheets can inactivate viruses, bacteria, and fungi within minutes in the dark conditions. By coating surfaces with HB nanosheets, it rapidly inactivates SARS-CoV-2, influenza virus, and other pathogens. The nanosheets work ...

Engineered Bacteria Can Deliver Antiviral Therapies, Vaccines

May 21, 2025 — New research demonstrates how specially engineered bacteria taken orally can operate as a delivery system for vaccines and antiviral ...

Unlocking the Secrets of Bat Immunity

May 21, 2025 — Bats are known as natural hosts for highly pathogenic viruses such as MERS- and SARS-related coronaviruses, as well as the Marburg and Nipah viruses. In contrast to the severe and often fatal disease outcomes these viruses cause in humans, bats ...

Why Some Viral Infections Appear to Trigger Autoimmune Disease

May 20, 2025 — By studying Chikungunya virus, scientists shed light on how immune responses to viral infections may lead to persistent symptoms of autoimmune ...

Genomic Data Shows Widespread Mpox Transmission in West Africa Prior to 2022 Global Outbreak

May 19, 2025 — Historically, most human mpox infections have resulted from zoonotic transmission --m eaning from animals to humans -- and these spillovers have rarely led to human-to-human transmission. But during ...

How Antibiotic Resistance to Fusidic Acid Works

May 16, 2025 — Researchers describe a fundamental mechanism of antibiotic resistance. What happens in a bacterium that is resistant to the antibiotic fusidic acid? With a stop-motion movie at the atomic level, they can show that the resistance protein FusB works ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:18am EDT

Protein Switch Turns Anti-Viral Immune Response on and Off

May 15, 2025 — An international research team has discovered a critical protein that acts as a 'switch' regulating immune responses to ...

New Study Offers Insights Into Designing Safe, Effective Nasal Vaccines

May 14, 2025 — Most vaccines -- and boosters -- are injected directly into muscle tissue, usually in the upper arm, to kickstart the body's immune system in the fight against disease. But for respiratory diseases ...

World's Largest Bat Organoid Platform Paves the Way for Pandemic Preparedness

May 15, 2025 — Until now, most research has used either generalized cell samples or organoids made from just one type of tropical fruit bat, and only from a single ...

Discovery of Antibiotic Resistance in Newly Identified Bacterium

May 7, 2025 — The recently discovered bacterium Staphylococcus borealis, named after the Northern Lights, turns out to be resistant to several classes of antibiotics. The elderly are especially at ...

Novel, Needle-Free, Live-Attenuated Influenza Vaccines With Broad Protection Against Human and Avian Virus Subtypes

May 9, 2025 — A research team has achieved a significant breakthrough in developing broadly protective, live-attenuated influenza vaccines (LAIV). These innovative ...

Discovery Opens Up for New Ways to Treat Chlamydia

May 8, 2025 — Researchers have discovered a type of molecule that can kill chlamydia bacteria but spare bacteria that are important for health. The discovery opens the door for further research towards developing ...

Building Vaccines for Future Versions of a Virus

May 8, 2025 — AI model EVE-Vax provides clues about how a virus may evolve and the immune response it could ...

Evaluating the Safety and Efficacy of a Smallpox Vaccine for Preventing Mpox

May 8, 2025 — The recent global monkeypox (mpox) outbreak, with a new and aggressive variant, has underscored the dire need for safe, broadly effective, and ...

Engineering an Antibody Against Flu With Sticky Staying Power

May 8, 2025 — Scientists have engineered a monoclonal antibody that can protect mice from a lethal dose of influenza A, a new study shows. The new molecule combines the specificity of a mature flu fighter with the ...

Viruses Under the Super Microscope: How Influenza Viruses Communicate With Cells

May 7, 2025 — Influenza viruses are among the most likely triggers of future pandemics. A research team has developed a method that can be used to study the ...

Researchers Restore Antibiotic Effect in the Event of Resistance

May 7, 2025 — Bacterial resistance negates the effect of antibiotics in the treatment of infection. Using mouse models, researchers now show that if antibiotics are administered with an enzyme called endolysin, ...

HIV: Genetic Characteristics Associated With Sustained HIV Remission After Stopping Treatment

Apr. 30, 2025 — Tackling HIV continues to be a major public health challenge, mainly because the persistence of viral reservoirs means that people living with HIV need to take lifelong antiretroviral treatment. But ...

Influenza Virus Hacks Cell's Internal System

Apr. 28, 2025 — The influenza virus manipulates the body's gene regulation system to accelerate its own spread. A new study also shows that an already approved drug could help strengthen immune defenses -- ...

Single-Dose Baloxavir Reduces Household Influenza Transmission

Apr. 25, 2025 — A landmark study reveals that a single oral dose of baloxavir marboxil (baloxavir) significantly reduces the transmission of influenza within households, marking a major advancement in influenza ...

The Antibiotic That Takes the Bite out of Lyme

Apr. 23, 2025 — Piperacillin, an antibiotic in the same class as penicillin, effectively cured mice of Lyme disease at 100-times less than the effective dose of doxycycline, the current gold standard treatment. At ...

Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome May Be Driven by Remnants of Infection

Apr. 23, 2025 — Scientists believe they know what causes the treated infection to mimic chronic illness: the body may be responding to remnants of the bacteria that causes Lyme that tend to pool in the liver and ...

Scientists Identify Potential Treatments for Emerging Zoonotic Pathogens

Apr. 23, 2025 — A team of biomedical researchers trained a machine learning algorithm to identify more than two dozen viable treatments for diseases caused by zoonotic pathogens that can jump from animal hosts to ...

Bacteria Killing Material Creates Superbug Busting Paint

Apr. 23, 2025 — A bacteria killing coating created by scientists has been used in trials of a new paint that can be applied to a range of surfaces to effectively kill bacteria and viruses, including difficult to ...

Experimental Cancer Drug Could Streamline Standard Tuberculosis Treatment and Prevent Post-TB Lung Disease, Study Suggests

Apr. 21, 2025 — An experimental drug now in clinical trials as a cancer treatment could help boost the power of first-line tuberculosis (TB) treatments by helping infected cells die a gentler death, investigators ...

A Light-Activated Probe Reveals TB Immune System Evasion Mechanisms

Apr. 21, 2025 — Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that kills more than a million people worldwide every year. The pathogen that causes the disease, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is deadly in part because of ...

Americans Don't Think Bird Flu Is a Threat, Study Suggests

Apr. 18, 2025 — A team led by researchers say public ignorance and apathy towards bird flu (highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI) could pose a serious obstacle to containing the virus and preventing a ...

Experimental Bird Flu Vaccine Excels in Animal Models

Apr. 17, 2025 — A vaccine under development has demonstrated complete protection in mice against a deadly variant of the virus that causes bird flu. The work focuses on the H5N1 variant known as 2.3.4.4b, which has ...

Structural Images of a Tuberculosis-Fighting Virus

Apr. 16, 2025 — Mycobacteria are the world's most deadly bacteria --c ausing infectious diseases including tuberculosis (TB), which alone kills more than one million people each year. New drugs to fight these ...

Experts Stress Importance of Vaccination Amidst Measles Outbreaks

Apr. 14, 2025 — Pediatric infectious diseases experts stress the importance of vaccination against measles, one of the most contagious viruses, which is once more spreading in the United ...

A Mysterious Pathogen: Oropouche Virus More Common in Latin America Than Previously Thought

Apr. 14, 2025 — Like the dengue and Zika viruses, Oropouche virus causes a febrile illness. There are recent indications that infections during pregnancy can cause damage to unborn babies. Researchers have now ...

Deadly Rodent-Borne Hantavirus Is an Emerging Disease With Pandemic Potential

Apr. 11, 2025 — Virginia Tech researchers seek to understand the environmental factors that influence the distribution of hantavirus in rodent populations across the United ...

Immune Protein Modification Blocks Viral Replication, Heart Inflammation

Apr. 10, 2025 — Virology researchers have found that a specific protein modification to the immune protein MDA5 is key to how our bodies detect and respond to viruses and viral replication. The publication explains ...

Certain Nasal Bacteria May Boost the Risk for COVID-19 Infection, Study Finds

Apr. 9, 2025 — A new study has found that certain bacteria living in the nose may influence how likely someone is to get a COVID-19 infection. The research reveals that certain types of nasal bacteria can affect ...

Nasal Spray H5N1 Avian Influenza Vaccine Developed

Apr. 8, 2025 — Scientists have pioneered an influenza virus vector-based nasal spray vaccine platform and developed a nasal spray H5N1 avian influenza vaccine. During the early COVID-19 pandemic, this platform ...

An Antiviral Chewing Gum to Reduce Influenza and Herpes Simplex Virus Transmission

Apr. 4, 2025 — Low vaccination rates for influenza viruses and the lack of an HSV vaccine underscore the need for a new approach to reduce viral transmission. Researchers have now used a clinical-grade antiviral ...