Hard Nanomaterials in Time of Viral Pandemics

Abstract

The SARS-Cov-2 pandemic has spread worldwide during 2020, setting up an uncertain start of this decade. The measures to contain infection taken by many governments have been extremely severe by imposing home lockdown and industrial production shutdown, making this the biggest crisis since the second world war. Additionally, the continuous colonization of wild natural lands may touch unknown virus reservoirs, causing the spread of epidemics. Apart from SARS-Cov-2, the recent history has seen the spread of several viral pandemics such as H2N2 and H3N3 flu, HIV, and SARS, while MERS and Ebola viruses are considered still in a prepandemic phase. Hard nanomaterials (HNMs) have been recently used as antimicrobial agents, potentially being next-generation drugs to fight viral infections. HNMs can block infection at early (disinfection, entrance inhibition) and middle (inside the host cells) stages and are also able to mitigate the immune response. This review is focused on the application of HNMs as antiviral agents. In particular, mechanisms of actions, biological outputs, and limitations for each HNM will be systematically presented and analyzed from a material chemistry point-of-view. The antiviral activity will be discussed in the context of the different pandemic viruses. We acknowledge that HNM antiviral research is still at its early stage, however, we believe that this field will rapidly blossom in the next period.

Insights and Perspectives Regarding Nanostructured Fluorescent Materials toward Tackling COVID-19 and Future Pandemics

“… 4 − 7 Similarly, an upsurge has been observed in developing antimicrobial (particularly antibacterial and antiviral) coating materials, water purification, and detection of harmful species in water or other solvents. 8 − 12 Hence, this current challenging time has allowed us to focus on various biomedical and environmental issues. The sensitive and reliable detection/treatment of pathogens, biomarkers, small molecules, etc.…”

Biophysical Aspects of Interactions at the Bionanointerface between Viruses and Metal and Metal Oxide Nanomaterials

“…Such surfaces are suitable for lodging the target agents which are relatively stable in diff erent biological media. The state of multi-valency of gold and silver nanoparticles depends on the branched ligands and this feature enhances the localized concentration of the target molecules [41].…”

“…The main eff ort focuses on the ability of metal and metal oxide nanoparticles to elevate the degree of surface disinfection, the degree of survival among the host, blocking the viral outspreading, upraise the immunity of the patient or host, prevent uptake of viruses. All these intentions are heading towards eff ective antiviral infection [41]. The Coulombic interactions concern with parameters like electric force, charges, and the distance of separation.…”

Nanomedicine & Nanotoxicology Future Could Be Reshaped Post-COVID-19 Pandemic

“…This review focuses on the contribution of the biomedical nanotechnology community to the pandemic and how SARS-CoV-2 could reshape the future of nanomedicine and nanotoxicology. For other potential applications of nanotechnology to the pandemic please refer to some excellent reviews that have been recently published that gave a comprehensive overview on: (1) the application of nanotechnology in the design of effective therapeutics and viral vaccines (Chauhan et al, 2020;Weiss et al, 2020), (2) the potential of hard nanomaterials in the fight again the pandemic (Reina et al, 2020), and (3) the potential of nanomaterial for efficient viral detection and the design of disinfectants and personal protective equipment (Sportelli et al, 2020;Weiss et al, 2020).…”