Infectious disease

The computational immunologist Purvesh Khatri embraces messy data as a way to capture the messiness of disease. As a result, he’s making elusive genomic discoveries.

A virus that causes crippling birth defects has been shown to do something else: It changes thousands of messages coming from DNA that control normal cellular activities.

The infamous case of Typhoid Mary underscores the importance of tolerance in understanding disease.

Scientists have developed new ways to forecast who will bounce back from disease by studying not just the way the immune system fights infections, but how the body repairs itself.

Scientists are having a difficult time finding a treatment for the Zika virus in part because so few drugs are safe for pregnant women. But one antibiotic has shown promise.

Researchers are racing to understand how the Zika virus causes birth defects. Their first results have revealed tantalizing clues about how the virus interferes with the developing brain — and how it might be stopped.

By examining regions shared between some of nature's most variable genes, malaria researchers are piecing together an understanding of a deadly parasite.

Machine learning techniques are helping scientists pinpoint the mutations that allow bird and pig viruses to infect humans.