STD News

January 29, 2026

Top Headlines

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 ...

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 that shut down viral entry. What once might have ...

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 interferon-responsive T cells create a self-sustaining ...

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 genuine biological links rather than random ...

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 block infection. Understanding this mechanism could ...

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, the test achieved 99% sensitivity and specificity. ...

Latest Headlines

updated 5:20am EST

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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

June 20, 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Molecular Stool Test Could Improve Detection of Tuberculosis in Adults With HIV

Apr. 4, 2025 The Xpert MTB/Ultra molecular diagnostic test for stool samples, until now recommended only for children, could be established as an additional test for diagnosing tuberculosis in adults living with ...

Precision Medicine Could Be Possible in the Fight Against Antibiotic Resistance

Apr. 3, 2025 Certain antibiotic-resistant infections could be treated with precision medicine in the future, thanks to a new resource mapping plasmids the ultimate vehicle of rapid bacterial ...

New Brain Organoid Model

Apr. 2, 2025 Organoids have revolutionized science and medicine, providing platforms for disease modeling, drug testing, and understanding developmental processes. While not exact replicas of human organs, they ...

Novel Point-of-Care Technology Delivers Accurate HIV Results in Minutes

Apr. 2, 2025 The technology described uses a nanomechanical platform and tiny cantilevers to detect multiple HIV antigens at high sensitivity in a matter of minutes. These silicon cantilevers are cheap and easy ...