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More than 40 years of AIDS research has led to significant advancements in treatment and prevention. Drugs to treat the infection continued to improve, as did patient outcomes. But now there's another major milestone. Gilead's lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injectable capsid inhibitor, achieved 100% efficacy in preventing HIV infections in women. For anyone who has followed AIDS over the years, this is simply amazing.

The black and orange patches that define the coloring of a calico cat beautifully illustrate the genetic mechanism known as "dosage compensation" through X chromosome inactivation.

A group at Mount Sinai Medical School has made a rather startling discovery. People who died from Alzheimer's Disease had brains that contained more of two herpes viruses than controls. Could we have been looking in the wrong direction for therapies for this disease? This is a potentially huge discovery. 

Of all the drugs used to treat herpes, acyclovir is the most common. So, how does it work? The devil is in the details ... and the details are fascinating.

The good news is that African swine fever has nothing to do with swine flu and does not infect humans; the bad news is mostly for pig farmers and ranchers who are facing, as Russian scientists claim, "arguably the most dangerous swine disease worldwide."

The Lancet reports that early drug trial results show great promise for a new antiviral drug combination developed for patients infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV).

Far too many antibiotic prescriptions are written for infections that cannot be treated by them. A new study published in JAMA shows how some simple behavioral interventions can change prescribers habits toward more evidence-based prescribing.

When we talk of patient safety, the analogy is often to aviation. But perhaps like commercial flight's problems with baggage, the last little push -- from a very few to never -- is a very steep hurdle.

If you've been tracking efforts to combat the Hepatitis C virus, you know that 2015 has been a year full of advances and hope for the future. First, there was FDA's approval of the treatment Viekira Pax, and recently California researchers have unearthed diagnostic gold with their latest screening process.

A group from University of Arizona's College of Biomedical Engineering has figured out how to turn a smartphone into an analytical instrument. It's capable of measuring an insanely small quantity of norovirus – the bug the causes viral gastroenteritis. Water samples can now be checked for viral contamination. Very clever, indeed.

The origin of life is a profound mystery. Once life arose, natural selection and evolution took over. But the question of how a mixture of various gases created life-giving molecules that arranged into structures capable of reproducing themselves remains unanswered.

Sickle Cell Disease is an awful genetic disease that disproportionally affects black people. It's caused by a single-point mutation in DNA, which results in a modified hemoglobin protein, differing by only one amino acid. While this may sound insignificant, it's anything but. Simple organic chemistry explains why this change profoundly affects those unfortunate enough to inherit the disease, which is characterized by abnormal hemoglobin.

Do kids need COVID shots? It's a difficult question to answer, but incendiary commentary has unnecessarily muddied the issue. Let's take a look at what we know so far.

Men who have had sex with another man on any occasion since 1977 are currently prohibited from donating blood in the U.S. The ban was instated in 1983 as a response to the higher prevalence of HIV/AIDS among men who have sex with men (MSM) in order to prevent contaminating blood supplies with HIV. However, scientific advances have made the ban seem antiquated and in need of revision. In yesterday s Los Angeles Times, Dr. James P.

Much of the concern about social distancing and the use of masks centers around the airborne transmission of the virus. A recent study looks at how other factors, like temperature and humidity, make COVID-19 more or less viable when it comes to transmission.

In yet another cool discovery using nature as a muse, English scientists have found that a foamy cocktail whipped up by Trinidadian frogs during mating may serve as a mode of antibiotic delivery to potentially prevent infections.

Screen Shot 2014-12-23 at 1.46.58 PMNormally, this wouldn t even make the news. A new antibiotic approved. Not only that, but it belongs to a class of antibiotics (called cephalosporins) from the class of 1960s, which is hardly novel. There are about 60 cephalosporins that have been approved since 1964, when cephalothin was launched by Lilly.

Ellie is the "first ever digital UV sterilizing pod." Do you still need to wash and sterilize baby bottles? Yes, of course – drinking milk from unwashed containers would make anyone sick. But does everything that newborns place in their mouths need to undergo UV irradiation? Absolutely not. 

Millions of women worldwide have been tested for cervical cancer, human papillomavirus (HPV) and other problems via the PAP test. The procedure was invented in 1943 by Dr. George Papanicolaou (thus the name), and has become the most widely used cancer-screening test in the world

LigoCyte, a small biotech based in Montana has been working for years on a vaccine for norovirus (the so-called stomach flu, or cruise ship virus). And it looks like they may really have something.

New research on a Zika vaccine is as promising as it gets. A recent study highlights the first live-attenuated vaccine that provides great protection and could result in a quick and effective vaccine that will be available soon to the people who most need it.  

The CDC is again recommending that fully vaccinated Americans mask up in certain circumstances. This is bad advice at odds with the available evidence that will only seed more vaccine hesitancy.

Opposition to the use of biotechnology to enhance agriculture was always based on junk science. But now these anti-GMO activists look downright silly as cutting-edge biomedical science rescues us from COVID.

Yale researchers have discovered a virus that attacks bacteria, also known as bacteriophage (or "phage"), which is capable of infecting Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a highly-feared bacterial pathogen.

Controlling Big Tech, why is infrastructure so expensive to build and maintain, climate migration is altering the diseases we must confront, and a users-guide to breathing.