HIV and AIDS News

June 26, 2025

Top Headlines

The Pleasure Prescription: Why More Sex Means Less Menopause Pain

June 25, 2025 — Keeping sex on the schedule may be its own menopause medicine: among 900 women aged 40-79, those active in the last three months reported far less dryness, pain, and irritation, while orgasm and overall satisfaction stayed rock-solid despite dips in ...

COVID-19 Protein Triggers Immune Attacks on Healthy Cells — but a Common Drug Can Stop It

June 24, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered a stealthy tactic used by the SARS-CoV-2 virus: one of its proteins can leap from infected cells to healthy ones, effectively tricking the immune system into attacking the ...

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 ...

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 ...

Selenium Exposure During Pregnancy May Reduce Childhood Streptococcal Infections

May 20, 2025 — Higher maternal selenium levels during pregnancy were associated with a lower risk of streptococcal infections in children, suggesting a potential protective ...

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 ...

Postpartum Depression and Bonding: Long-Term Effects on School-Age Children

May 14, 2025 — Postpartum maternal mental health and mother-to-infant bonding are well-established as critical factors in a child's psychosocial development. However, few studies have explored the combined impact of postpartum maternal depression and early bonding ...

'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 ...

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

May 3, 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 ...

Immune Protein Modification Blocks Viral Replication, Heart Inflammation

Apr. 14, 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 how two protein modifications activate MDA5, an ...

Unsafe Driving During School Drop Offs at 'Unacceptable' Levels

Apr. 13, 2025 — Risky driving by parents and other motorists who do the school run is putting children in danger, according to a new ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:50pm EDT

Parents' Metabolic Traits Can Affect the Child's Health Over Time

Apr. 13, 2025 — Research shows that the biological parents' genes affect the child's insulin function and capacity to regulate blood sugar levels and blood lipids in different ways. Such knowledge may be used to to ...

How Zika Virus Knocks out Our Immune Defenses

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

Peacekeeper Cells Protect the Body from Autoimmunity During Infection

Mar. 21, 2025 — New research shows how a specially trained population of immune cells keeps the peace by preventing other immune cells from attacking their own. The study provides a better understanding of immune ...

Researchers Develop Method to Identify Dormant Cells That Carry HIV

Mar. 13, 2025 — Study findings provide a new gene pathway for potential treatment of the virus affecting ...

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 ...

Strong Link Between Western Diet During Pregnancy and ADHD

Mar. 4, 2025 — New research reveals that a mother's diet during pregnancy -- characterized by a Western dietary pattern high in fat and sugar and low in fresh ingredients -- may increase the risk of ...

Interventions Identified to Eliminate Transmission of Hepatitis B in Africa

Mar. 2, 2025 — A new study that has the potential to change the landscape of hepatitis B transmission in Africa. Researchers conducted an analysis revealing key interventions that could effectively eliminate ...

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, ...

Stopping Asthma in Its Tracks

Feb. 19, 2025 — New therapeutic 'cocktails' may provide long-lasting relief for treatment-resistant asthma and other immune system inflammatory ...

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 humans are ...

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 ...

Study Shows Role of Cells' Own RNA in Antiviral Defense

Dec. 19, 2024 — A new role has been uncovered for a cell's own RNA in fending off attacks by RNA viruses. Some of the cell's RNA molecules, researchers found, help regulate antiviral signaling. These ...

Study Shows Drop in Use of Antiviral Medications in Young Children With Influenza

Dec. 17, 2024 — Despite national medical guidelines supporting the use of antiviral medications in young children diagnosed with influenza, a recent study reports an underuse of the ...

A New Class of Antivirals Could Help Prevent Future Pandemics

Dec. 11, 2024 — Researchers discovered a vulnerability in viral enzymes that could lead to novel treatments for diseases as diverse as COVID-19 and Ebola -- while also minimizing side effects and reducing the odds ...

We May Be Overestimating the Association Between Gut Bacteria and Disease, Machine Learning Study Finds

Nov. 13, 2024 — Many bacterial-linked illnesses, such as inflammatory bowel disease or colorectal cancer, are associated with an overgrowth of gut bacteria thought to be bad actors. But when researchers used a ...

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, ...

Immune Cell Discovery Offers New Potential for Cancer Immunotherapy

Oct. 25, 2024 — Researchers have identified a novel type of immune cell, called the stem-like CD4 T cell, that plays a pivotal role in anti-tumor immunity. The pre-clinical findings highlight the potential to ...

Tiny Medicine Combats Infections and Drug Resistance

Oct. 24, 2024 — Researchers have developed a new technology that can hold an entire course of antibiotics in one tiny dose and deliver on demand just the right amount of medication that a particular patient needs to ...

Persistent Infection Could Explain Long COVID in Some People, Study Finds

Oct. 9, 2024 — Researchers found people with wide-ranging long COVID symptoms were twice as likely to have SARS-CoV-2 proteins in their blood, compared to those without long COVID ...

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 ...

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, ...

An Antidiabetic Helps the Immune System Recognize Reservoirs of HIV

Sep. 10, 2024 — Metformin, a drug used to treat type 2 diabetes, could help deplete the viral reservoir and eliminate it entirely in people living with HIV who receive antiretroviral ...

Late Start of COVID Treatment May Still Benefit Immunocompromised Patients, Study Finds

Sep. 3, 2024 — Starting antiviral treatment as late as 14 days after infection with SARS-CoV-2 may still be beneficial in hosts with compromised immune systems, who are at greatest risk of developing severe ...

Fetal Brain Impacted When Mom Fights Severe Flu: New Mouse Study Explains How

July 29, 2024 — New research using live mouse-adapted influenza virus improves upon previous mouse experiments to explain how maternal infection impacts fetal brain development. The study also indicates fetal brain ...

Scientists Identify Key Protein Behind Spread of Shingles Virus

July 25, 2024 — Scientists have discovered a new evasion strategy used by the varicella zoster virus, which causes chickenpox and shingles, that may allow it to affect tissues far from the original site of ...

How Evolution Tamed a Deadly Virus and Why We Should Still Worry

July 25, 2024 — Over the last century, a once-deadly mosquito-borne virus has evolved so that it no longer sickens humans. New research shows that changes in the virus's ability to target human cells paralleled ...

Proof-of-Concept Study to Find Functional Cure for HIV

July 24, 2024 — Researchers conducted a breakthrough proof-of-concept study that found an HIV-like virus particle that could cease the need for lifelong ...

Improving HIV Treatment in Children and Adolescents -- The Right Way

July 18, 2024 — Globally, around 2.6 million children and adolescents are currently living with HIV, the majority of them in Africa. These young people are much more likely to experience treatment failure than ...

Uncovering Late-Onset Combined Immune Deficiency in Chromosome 18q Deletion Syndrome

July 11, 2024 — Researchers have revealed a novel association between chromosome 18q deletion syndrome and late-onset combined immunodeficiency (LOCID). Their finding challenges the previously held notion that 18q ...

Scientists Exploring Potential New Treatments for Glioblastoma

July 8, 2024 — A new approach to treating the most malignant type of brain cancer -- glioblastoma -- has shown strong promise in pre-clinical settings, raising hopes of increasing current average survival rates ...