Zika Virus News and Research

Latest Zika Virus News and Research

Study finds drug targets for Ebola, Dengue, and Zika viruses

No drugs are currently available to treat Ebola, Dengue, or Zika viruses, which infect millions of people every year and result in severe illness, birth defects, and even death. New research from the Gladstone Institutes and UC San Francisco may finally change that. Scientists identified key ways the three viruses hijack the body's cells, and they found at least one potential drug that can disrupt this process in human cells.

13 Dec 2018

Risk Analysis publishes special issue on communicating about Zika virus

Today, Risk Analysis, an International Journal, published a special issue, "Communicating About Zika," which features several articles that were originally presented as works-in-progress at the Zika Communication Summit convened in March 2017 by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

10 Dec 2018

New vaccine candidate for Zika virus proves to be effective in mice and monkeys

Researchers at the University of Hawaii medical school have successfully developed a vaccine candidate for the Zika virus, showing that it is effective in protecting both mice and monkeys from the infection.

5 Dec 2018

Researchers generate six antibodies to diagnose and treat Zika virus

Researchers have generated six Zika virus antibodies that could be used to test for and possibly treat a mosquito-borne disease that has infected more than 1.5 million people worldwide.

29 Nov 2018

The Native Antigen Company launches ground-breaking Zika virus immunoassays

The Native Antigen Company has launched a series of ground-breaking immunoassays for Zika virus, offering researchers in academia, public health and drug discovery the capability to work with unprecedented levels of specificity and sensitivity.

29 Nov 2018

Why Mosquitoes prefer some people over others: Genetic discovery

A new study has tried to assess the genetic variants among mosquitoes that make them more susceptible to spreading deadly viral diseases such as dengue, yellow fever, Zika and chikungunya and more resistant to insecticides that are used to kill them.

25 Nov 2018

Scientists discover biomarkers for Zika-related birth defects

Scientists at USC have discovered biomarkers for fetal birth defects in the blood of pregnant women infected with Zika.

2 Nov 2018

Wild monkeys in the Americas transmit Zika virus to humans via mosquitoes, reports study

A collaborative group of researchers from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and the Faculty of Medicine of Sao Jose do Rio in Brazil is the first to report that wild monkeys in the Americas are transmitting the Zika virus to humans via mosquitoes, making complete eradication of the virus in the Americas very unlikely.

2 Nov 2018

Monkeys infected with Zika virus points to a sylvatic transmission cycle

Zika virus has been detected in dead monkeys found in Brazil near São José do Rio Preto, São Paulo State, and Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais.

30 Oct 2018

Scientists engineer antiviral peptide that exploits Achilles' heel of Zika virus

Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore have engineered an antiviral peptide that exploits the Zika virus at its Achilles' heel - the viral membrane - hence stopping the virus from causing severe infections.

24 Oct 2018

A new approach identified to control Zika virus, dengue fever

Mosquitoes are the world's deadliest animals, killing thousands of people and causing millions of illnesses each year.

19 Oct 2018

UTMB researchers develop less expensive way to produce vaccines

Researchers at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have developed less expensive way to produce vaccines that cuts the costs of vaccine production and storage by up to 80 percent without decreasing safety or effectiveness.

6 Oct 2018

Understanding mosquitoes’ mating behavior is key for developing vector control strategies

The ears of male mosquitoes amplify the sound of an approaching female using a self-generated phantom tone that mimics the female's wingbeats, which increases the ear's acoustic input by a factor of up to 45,000, finds a new UCL-led study.

26 Sep 2018

UNC researchers receive NIH award to study maternal-fetal transmission of Zika virus

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and collaborators in Nicaragua have been given a five-year, $2.7 million R01 award from the U.S. National Institutes of Health to better understand the epidemiology of Zika virus in pregnancy and the impact the virus has on infant neurodevelopment.

26 Sep 2018

Zika virus could become a weapon against brain cancer

Zika virus infection is a dreaded one that can lead to severe brain damage in the unborn babies of mothers who get it.

20 Sep 2018

Researchers harness Zika virus vaccine under development to target glioblastoma

Researchers at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have successfully harnessed a Zika virus vaccine under development to target and kill the brain cancer known as glioblastoma.

19 Sep 2018

Zika virus vaccine shows promise for treatment of fatal glioblastoma

An international team of researchers has successfully deployed a Zika virus vaccine to target and kill human glioblastoma brain cancer stem cells, which had been transplanted into mice.

18 Sep 2018

Researchers use CRISPR to identify gene that helps cells resist flavivirus infection

UT Southwestern researchers today report the first use of CRISPR genome-wide screening to identify a gene that helps cells resist flavivirus infection. That nasty class of pathogens includes West Nile virus, dengue fever, Zika virus, and yellow fever.

18 Sep 2018

Researchers examine use of Twitter to propagate or debunk conspiracy theories during Zika virus outbreak

Researchers investigating the use of Twitter to propagate or debunk conspiracy theories related to the 2015-2016 Zika virus outbreak analyzed the content of more than 25,000 Tweets and the characteristics of the social networks used to disseminate them.

11 Sep 2018

Researchers unravel how Zika virus manipulates the human immune system

Macrophages are immune cells that are supposed to protect the body from infection by viruses and bacteria. Yet Zika virus preferentially infects these cells. Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have now unraveled how the virus shuts down the genes that make macrophages function as immune cells.

11 Sep 2018