A new study of immune cells battling a chronic viral infection shows that the cells, called T cells, become exhausted by the fight in specific ways, undergoing profound changes that make them progressively less effective over time.

Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara have made a significant discovery relating to viral infections in humans.

Scientists probing the details of viral infection have discovered an intriguing surprise: in mice, herpes viruses hijack their host cells' tools for fixing DNA damage and use those tools to enhance their own reproduction.

New evidence supports the link between genetic factors and certain adverse events related to smallpox vaccination. The study, published in the July 15th issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online, may have implications for predicting adverse events from other live vaccines.

Over 30% of our genes are under the control of small molecules called microRNAs. They prevent specific genes from being turned into protein and regulate many crucial processes like cell division and development, but how they do so has remained unclear. Now researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] have developed a new method that uncovered the mode of action of microRNAs in a test tube.