STD News

March 2, 2026

Top Headlines

Common Pneumonia Bacterium May Fuel Alzheimer’s Disease

Feb. 21, 2026 A common bacterium best known for causing pneumonia and sinus infections may also play a surprising role in Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers found that Chlamydia pneumoniae can invade the retina and brain, where it sparks inflammation, nerve cell ...

This Reengineered HPV Vaccine Trains T Cells to Hunt Down Cancer

Feb. 18, 2026 Northwestern researchers have shown that when it comes to cancer vaccines, arrangement can be just as important as ingredients. By repositioning a small fragment of an HPV protein on a DNA-based nanovaccine, the team dramatically strengthened the ...

Breakthrough CRISPR System Could Reverse Antibiotic Resistance Crisis

Feb. 18, 2026 Antibiotic resistance is racing toward a global crisis, with “superbugs” projected to cause over 10 million deaths annually by 2050. Now, scientists at UC San Diego have unveiled a powerful new CRISPR-based tool that doesn’t just fight ...

Hearing Aids Didn’t Boost Memory Tests but Dementia Risk Dropped

Feb. 10, 2026 A long-term study of older adults with moderate hearing loss found that hearing aids did not lead to better performance on memory or thinking tests, but the story did not end there. Over seven years, people who were prescribed hearing aids were ...

Scientists Found a Sugar That Could Defeat Deadly Superbugs

Feb. 6, 2026 Scientists in Australia have uncovered a clever new way to fight some of the most dangerous drug-resistant bacteria by targeting a sugar that exists only on bacterial cells. By designing antibodies that recognize this unique sugar, researchers were ...

A Lost Disease Emerges from 5,500-year-old Human Remains

Jan. 26, 2026 A 5,500-year-old skeleton from Colombia has revealed the oldest known genome of the bacterium linked to syphilis and related diseases. The ancient strain doesn’t fit neatly into modern categories, hinting at a forgotten form that split off early ...

A Hidden Immune Loop May Drive Dangerous Inflammation with Age

Jan. 24, 2026 Aging immune cells may be sabotaging the body from within. Researchers found that macrophages produce a protein that locks them into a chronic inflammatory state, making infections like sepsis more deadly in older adults. Turning off this signal ...

A Blood Test Could Reveal Crohn’s Disease Years Before Symptoms

Jan. 22, 2026 A new blood test may reveal Crohn’s disease years before symptoms begin. The test detects an unusual immune response to gut bacteria in people who later develop the condition. By studying healthy relatives of Crohn’s patients, researchers ...

Tiny Doses of THC Show Big Benefits for HIV Treatment

Jan. 21, 2026 A new study suggests that micro-doses of THC could help counter many long-term side effects of HIV treatment without causing intoxication. In animal models, low-dose THC reduced inflammation, improved gut bacteria, boosted serotonin, and lowered ...

A Common Painkiller May Be Quietly Changing Cancer Risk

Jan. 20, 2026 Ibuprofen may be doing more than easing aches and pains—it could also help reduce the risk of some cancers. Studies have linked regular use to lower rates of endometrial and bowel cancer, likely because the drug dampens inflammation that fuels ...

New Antibiotic Pill Shows Promise Against Drug-resistant Gonorrhea

Jan. 3, 2026 A one-dose oral drug called zoliflodacin has proven highly effective against gonorrhoea in a major international trial. The pill matched the success of current treatments while avoiding injections and complex dosing. As antibiotic resistance ...

A New Way to Prevent Gum Disease Without Wiping Out Good Bacteria

Dec. 16, 2025 Scientists are uncovering a surprising way to influence bacteria—not by killing them, but by changing how they communicate. Researchers studying oral bacteria found that disrupting chemical signals used in bacterial “conversations” can shift ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:19pm EST

AI Found a Way to Stop a Virus Before It Enters Cells

Dec. 15, 2025 Researchers discovered a hidden molecular “switch” that herpes viruses rely on to invade cells. By combining AI, simulations, and lab experiments, they identified and altered a single amino acid ...

Inflammation Turns Bone Marrow Into a Breeding Ground for Disease

Nov. 19, 2025 Researchers discovered that chronic inflammation fundamentally remodels the bone marrow, allowing mutated stem cell clones to quietly gain dominance with age. Reprogrammed stromal cells and ...

AI Unravels the Hidden Communication of Gut Microbes

Nov. 10, 2025 Scientists have turned to advanced AI to decode the intricate ecosystem of gut bacteria and their chemical signals. Using a Bayesian neural network called VBayesMM, researchers can now identify ...

A 25-Year Crohn’s Disease Mystery Finally Cracked by AI

Nov. 3, 2025 UC San Diego researchers combined artificial intelligence with molecular biology to unravel how immune cells in the gut decide between inflammation and healing, a process gone awry in Crohn’s ...

Ancient Viruses Hidden Inside Bacteria Could Help Defeat Modern Infections

Nov. 3, 2025 Penn State scientists uncovered an ancient bacterial defense where dormant viral DNA helps bacteria fight new viral threats. The enzyme PinQ flips bacterial genes to create protective proteins that ...

Exercise Might Be the Key to a Younger, Sharper Immune System

Oct. 14, 2025 Endurance exercise may train the immune system as much as the muscles. Older adults with decades of running or cycling had immune cells that functioned better and aged more slowly. Their inflammation ...

This New Blood Test Can Catch Cancer 10 Years Early

Oct. 13, 2025 Scientists at Mass General Brigham have created HPV-DeepSeek, a blood test that can detect HPV-linked head and neck cancers nearly a decade before diagnosis. By finding viral DNA in the bloodstream, ...

Scientists Finally Explain the Real Reason Pregnant Women Get Morning Sickness

Sep. 29, 2025 Morning sickness isn’t just random misery—it’s a biological defense system shaped by evolution to protect the fetus. By linking immune ...

In the Dark for 11 Million Years: How Blind Cavefish Rewrote Evolution

Aug. 29, 2025 Yale scientists discovered that cavefish species independently evolved blindness and depigmentation as they adapted to dark cave environments, with some lineages dating back over 11 million years. ...

How NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer Was Lost Before Reaching the Moon

Aug. 11, 2025 NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer, a mission designed to create high-resolution maps of water on the Moon, ended after losing contact with the spacecraft just one day after its February 26 launch. Despite ...

A Deadly Virus No One Talks About — and the HIV Drugs That Might Stop It

July 24, 2025 HIV antivirals may be the key to stopping HTLV-1, a deadly virus with no cure. In a decade-long study, researchers successfully suppressed the virus in mice and discovered a way to kill infected ...

This Virus Infects Millions—and We Just Discovered Its Secret Weapon

June 30, 2025 Scientists have discovered a stealthy mechanism that cytomegalovirus (CMV)—the leading infectious cause of birth defects in the U.S.—uses to infiltrate blood vessel cells while evading immune ...

Cold Sore Virus Hijacks Human Genome in 3D--and Scientists Found Its Weak Spot

June 20, 2025 Cold sore-causing HSV-1 doesn't just hijack cells it reconfigures the entire architecture of our DNA to aid its invasion. Researchers discovered that it actively reshapes the 3D structure of the ...

One Shot to Stop HIV: MIT's Bold Vaccine Breakthrough

June 19, 2025 Researchers from MIT and Scripps have unveiled a promising new HIV vaccine approach that generates a powerful immune response with just one dose. By combining two immune-boosting adjuvants alum and ...

5-Minute STI Test Poised to Transform Sexual Health Diagnostics

June 9, 2025 A revolutionary STI test developed by UK-based Linear Diagnostics is on track to dramatically reduce the time it takes to detect infections like gonorrhea and chlamydia. Built on ultra-fast EXPAR DNA ...

Preventing Chronic Inflammation from Turning Into Cancer

June 2, 2025 Chronic inflammatory bowel disease is challenging to treat and carries a risk of complications, including the development of bowel cancer. Young people are particularly affected: when genetic ...

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 ...

Researchers Engineer a Herpes Virus to Turn on T Cells for Immunotherapy

May 28, 2025 A team identified herpes virus saimiri, which infects the T cells of squirrel monkeys, as a source of proteins that activate pathways in T cells that are needed to promote T cell ...

HIV Vaccine Study Uncovers Powerful New Antibody Target

May 27, 2025 In the long battle to create an effective HIV vaccine, scientists have made a major leap forward. A new study shows that a series of vaccines can coax the immune system to produce powerful antibodies ...

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 ...

New Blood Test Shows Superior Sensitivity in Detecting HPV-Associated Head and Neck Cancers

May 20, 2025 Head and neck cancer researchers are reporting the development and testing of HPV-DeepSeek, a novel liquid biopsy assay. In their new study, HPV-DeepSeek achieved 99% sensitivty and specifity for ...

Could Nanoplastics in the Environment Turn E. Coli Into a Bigger Villain?

May 19, 2025 Nanoplastics are everywhere. These fragments are so tiny they can accumulate on bacteria and be taken up by plant roots; they're in our food, our water, and our bodies. Scientists don't ...

HIV Is Surging in Over-50s—But Campaigns Still Target the Young

June 21, 2025 HIV is surging among adults over 50 in sub-Saharan Africa, yet prevention and treatment campaigns still focus mainly on the young. New research reveals older adults face comparable or higher ...

Two HIV Vaccine Trials Show Proof of Concept for Pathway to Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies

May 15, 2025 A decades-long scientific challenge in HIV vaccine development has been finding a way to train the immune system to produce antibodies that can target many variants of the virus. Traditional ...

'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 ...

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 ...

New Molecular Label Could Lead to Simpler, Faster Tuberculosis Tests

May 5, 2025 Chemists found a way to identify a complex sugar molecule in the cell walls of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the world's deadliest pathogen. This labeling could lead to simpler, faster TB ...

A Digestive 'Treasure Chest' Shows Promise for Targeted Drug Treatment in the Gut

May 1, 2025 A new approach to drug design can deliver medicine directly to the gut in mice at significantly lower doses than current inflammatory bowel disease treatments. The proof-of-concept study introduced a ...

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 ...

Telehealth Might Be a Good Option for Women With Incontinence

Apr. 21, 2025 Women who experience urinary incontinence after giving birth may get just as much relief from telehealth as they do from physical therapy, a new study has ...