Chikungunya News

June 26, 2025

Top Headlines

Scientists Discover Llama Antibodies That Shut Down COVID — and Its Future Variants

June 16, 2025 — Powerful llama-derived antibodies could be the key to stopping not just current SARS viruses, but future ones too. Scientists have discovered a unique class of nanobodies that clamp the coronavirus ...

HIV Discovery Could Open Door to Long-Sought Cure

May 30, 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

'Loop'hole: HIV-1 Hijacks Human Immune Cells Using Circular RNAs

May 13, 2025 — Researchers have identified a never-before-seen mechanism that enables HIV-1 to evade the body's natural defenses and use it to support its survival and replication. The 'loophole' is a biological process that involves circular RNAs and marks the ...

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 broad binding capacity of a more general immune ...

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 interaction of viruses with host cells in unprecedented ...

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 ...

How a Small Number of Mutations Can Fuel Outbreaks of Western Equine Encephalitis Virus

Apr. 4, 2025 — New research shows how small shifts in the molecular makeup of a virus can profoundly alter its fate. These shifts could turn a deadly pathogen into a harmless bug or supercharge a relatively benign ...

How Zika Virus Knocks out Our Immune Defenses

Mar. 25, 2025 — This research comes as many mosquito-borne viruses are spreading ...

New Data on Mpox Vaccine Effectiveness

Mar. 20, 2025 — A study has found that a single dose of the Imvanex vaccine provides protection against Mpox with 84% effectiveness. For people with HIV, however, a single dose of the vaccine fails to offer sufficient protection. All at-risk groups, and people with ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:33pm EDT

Engineering Antibodies With a Novel Fusion Protein

Mar. 25, 2025 — Even with significant expansion in the global market for antibodies used in clinical care and research, scientists recognize that there is still untapped potential for finding new antibodies. Many ...

Cause of Post-COVID Inflammatory Shock in Children Identified

Mar. 12, 2025 — MIS-C is a serious inflammatory shock that affects children. It can occur several weeks after a COVID infection and can be life-threatening. Until now, however, the precise cause of the condition was ...

New Antibodies Show Potential to Defeat All SARS-CoV-2 Variants

Mar. 5, 2025 — A team has found two antibodies that can work together to neutralize the virus that causes COVID-19 in all its current known variations in a laboratory environment. More research is needed, but the ...

New Biosensor Can Detect Airborne Bird Flu in Under 5 Minutes

Mar. 3, 2025 — As highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza continues to spread in the U.S., posing serious threats to dairy and poultry farms, both farmers and public health experts need better ways to monitor for ...

Cold Sore Discovery IDs Unknown Trigger for Those Annoying Flare-Ups

Mar. 2, 2025 — Scientists have a new target to prevent cold sores -- and genital herpes flare-ups caused by the same virus -- after researchers discovered an unexpected way the herpes virus re-activates in the ...

As Dengue Spreads, Researchers Discover a Clue to Fighting the Virus

Feb. 24, 2025 — This research comes as dengue-carrying mosquitoes expand their territory into new regions, including Southern ...

Stealth Virus: Zika Virus Builds Tunnels to Covertly Infect Cells of the Placenta

Feb. 21, 2025 — Infection with Zika virus in pregnancy can lead to neurological disorders, fetal abnormalities and fetal death. Until now, how the virus manages to ...

Digging Into a Decades-Old Hepatitis B Mystery Suggests a New Potential Treatment

Feb. 20, 2025 — In their effort to answer a decades-old biological question about how the hepatitis B virus (HBV) is able to establish infection of liver cells, ...

Hijacking of Plasmin by Dengue Virus for Infection

Feb. 3, 2025 — Biological scientists have uncovered how the dengue virus uses its envelope protein to capture human plasmin from a blood meal to enhance the permeability of the mosquito midgut for ...

Scientists Uncover Structure of Critical Component in Deadly Nipah Virus

Jan. 20, 2025 — Researchers have profiled the molecular structure and features of a key part of the deadly Nipah virus. Experiments in cells showe how changes in the viral polymerase -- a protein involved in viral ...

Tunnel-Building Virus: How Zika Transmits from Mother to Fetus

Mar. 17, 2025 — The Zika virus builds tiny tunnels, called tunneling nanotubes, to stealthily transport material needed to infect nearby cells, including in placental cells, according to a team of researchers from ...

Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Why Zika Virus Hijacks a Protein Needed for Brain Growth

Jan. 13, 2025 — The mosquito-borne Zika virus is known for causing microcephaly, a birth defect in which abnormal brain development results in a smaller-than-expected head. A new study shows that the Zika virus ...

Route of Entry for Semliki Forest Virus Into the Brain Revealed

Jan. 13, 2025 — Semliki Forest virus was originally isolated from mosquitoes in the Semliki Forest, Uganda, hence the name. Upon systemic infection from mosquito bites, Semliki Forest virus causes mild blood viremia ...

Study Traces Ebola's Route to the Skin Surface

Jan. 1, 2025 — Researchers have traced a cellular route Ebola virus (EBOV) uses to traverse the inner and outer layers of skin and emerge onto the skin's surface. The study identifies new cell types within the ...

'Unbreakable' Lassa Vaccine Shows Promising Results

Dec. 26, 2024 — A live-attenuated vaccine under development is safe and 100% effective against Lassa virus in preclinical ...

The Surprising Role of Gut Infection in Alzheimer's Disease

Dec. 19, 2024 — Researchers have discovered a surprising link between a chronic gut infection caused by a common virus and the development of Alzheimer's disease in a subset of people. It is believed most ...

Light-Induced Gene Therapy Disables Cancer Cells' Energy Center

Dec. 13, 2024 — Researchers are shining a light on cancer cells' energy centers -- literally -- to damage these power sources and trigger widespread cancer cell death. In a new study, scientists combined ...

Scientists Discover New Receptor for Nerve Growth Factor--a Promising Target for Treating Pain

Dec. 5, 2024 — Researchers have found a new receptor for nerve growth factor that plays an important role in pain signaling, even though it does not signal on its own, according to a new study. The findings hold ...

Scientists Identify Mutation That Could Facilitate H5N1 'Bird Flu' Virus Infection and Potential Transmission in Humans

Dec. 5, 2024 — Avian influenza viruses typically require several mutations to adapt and spread among humans, but what happens when just one change can increase the risk of becoming a pandemic virus? A recent study ...

Researchers Design a Therapeutic Tool to Inhibit the Proliferation of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus That Causes COVID-19

Dec. 3, 2024 — Researchers present a new therapeutic tool capable of inhibiting the proliferation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. The results open up new perspectives in the fight against this ...

Scientists Implicate a Novel Cellular Protein in Hepatitis A Infection

Nov. 21, 2024 — Scientists have long been trying to tease apart hepatitis A virus, to understand its inner workings and how it functions in the human body. Infectious disease researchers have discovered that a ...

Optical Biosensor Rapidly Detects Mpox Virus

Nov. 14, 2024 — Researchers have developed an optical biosensor that detects the virus that causes mpox. The technology could make diagnosis much faster and cost-effective as the disease continues to spread ...

Potential Single-Dose Smallpox and Mpox Vaccine Moves Forward

Nov. 13, 2024 — An FDA-approved vaccine for smallpox and mpox is effective but causes side effects. The other requires multiple doses. An experimental single-dose vaccine uses the horsepox virus to harness the ...

New Findings on Animal Viruses With Potential to Infect Humans

Oct. 31, 2024 — Scientists investigating animal viruses with potential to infect humans have identified a critical protein that could enable spillover of a family of organisms called arteriviruses. In a new study, ...

Immunotherapy Blocks Scarring, Improves Heart Function in Mice With Heart Failure

Oct. 23, 2024 — Researchers have reduced scar formation and improved heart function in mouse models of heart failure using a monoclonal antibody treatment, similar to that approved by the FDA to treat other ...

In a Warming World, Public Needs to Know More About Protections from Mosquito-Borne Illnesses

Oct. 8, 2024 — Driven in part by climate change, epidemics from mosquito-spread viruses are occurring with increasing frequency. Yet few among the American public are worried about getting West Nile or dengue virus ...

Could a Bout of COVID Protect You from a Severe Case of Flu?

Sep. 30, 2024 — New findings on how past viral respiratory infections affect future, unrelated ones could lead to therapies for boosting general antiviral immunity -- and potentially pandemic ...

A Viral Close-Up of HTLV-1

Sep. 25, 2024 — Almost everyone knows about HIV. Fewer people know about its relative, HTLV-1. However, HTLV-1 can cause serious illnesses, including cancer. To develop ways to combat this virus, understanding its ...

Antiviral-Resistant Variants of SARS-CoV-2 Can Emerge in Immunocompromised People

Sep. 18, 2024 — Individuals with compromised immunity and persistent COVID-19 infections can harbor drug-resistant variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which have the potential to spread to the general population, ...

Paving the Way for Antivirals Against Ebola Virus and Its Deadly Relatives

Sep. 17, 2024 — Scientists share detailed, complete images of a viral structure called the Ebola virus nucleocapsid. This breakthrough may accelerate the development of antivirals that target this viral structure to ...