Could a vaccine be used to functionally cure HIV infection? New evidence from an animal study suggests the strategy may work, though the infection cleared was—of course—of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), not HIV.

Most HIV transmissions happen heterosexually, but so far, animal models don’t accurately recapitulate this process. Instead, researchers manually place a droplet of a solution that contains viruses inside the vagina of females. 

Spider-Man got his superhuman abilities after being bitten by an irradiated spider. Irradiated mosquitoes aren't quite as powerful, but they might help humanity in another way: the fight against malaria.

When epidemiologists at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta correctly suggested in 1982 that AIDS could be spread by blood transfusions, many blood bank officials reacted with skepticism. After all, the cause of AIDS was still a mystery, so there was no way to screen blood for the pathogen in question. 

Given how fast two entirely new and deadly viruses—the H7N9 influenza strain in China and the MERS coronavirus in Saudi Arabia—were picked up by disease surveillance experts, we’ve been pondering how the tools and technologies we take for granted today might have altered the course of HIV and AIDS if they’d been available when AIDS blipped on the public health radar.