Volume 04 · Issue 02 · 2022

Since its outbreak, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has strongly influenced the life of the general public around the world. Based on its fast spread and high mortality, there is a need for novel therapeutic treatments to overcome this global health crisis. While medicinal chemistry is focused on the development of highly selective and affine inhibitors toward a specific target enzyme, material science is focused on the development of nanomaterials for selective drug delivery. Based on the individual strengths, these disciplines could synergistically act together and help overcome the limitations of the respective approach. Herein, the combination of medicinal chemistry with material science to overcome health problems with the example of SARS-CoV-2 is critically discussed.

Upper respiratory tract samples are the most commonly used samples for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) diagnosis. The samples collected from the nasopharynx are preferred for viral nucleic acids detection. Commercial nasopharyngeal swabs (NPSs) are the major factor that influences the sampling quality. We here evaluated the acceptability and efficiency of NPSs from five manufacturers by examining the concentration of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene (GAPDH) retrieved from the swabs using the RT-PCR method. Significant different concentrations of GAPDH were detected, ranged from 4.36 × 10⁸ copies/mL to 6.98 × 10¹⁰ copies/mL among the five swabs (P < 0.05). The designation of the swab head, with or without tip expansion, had limited influence on the collection efficiency. The discrepancy among the NPSs emphasized the improvement of the swab head material.

Nucleic acid therapeutics, which involve transferring exogenous genes inside target cells, are a promising clinical treatment option that can regulate gene expression at the transcriptional or post-transcriptional level. Ideally, this kind of treatment modality will not lead to an unwanted immune response. Compared with traditional treatment methods, nucleic acid therapeutics can achieve prolonged and stable curative effects. As an emerging treatment method, nucleic acid therapeutics have played an increasingly important role in clinical settings for the treatment of various conditions, including infectious diseases, cancer, immune-related diseases, and monogenetic diseases. To date, a large number of clinical trials have been conducted, and more than 30 nucleic acid drugs have been approved, highlighting the strong potential of this approach in clinical practice. Diverse carriers are used to protect nucleic acids from being degraded and to help them reach their targets accurately. However, some carriers are known to cause negative effects on the release and expression of nucleic acid drugs as well as adverse effects such as allergic reactions and accumulation in the liver. Therefore, biosafety assessment of delivery systems before their application in clinical settings is critical. In this review, we describe different delivery systems for nucleic acid drugs and discuss their biosafety in both preclinical and clinical studies, with particular focus on the carriers themselves, drug administration method, and overall treatment of the disease.

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are the natural antibiotics recognized for their broad-spectrum resistance to bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites, and influencing the host immune responses. AMPs attributed to good biological effects have been used in various areas of human health, which are trying to completely replace antibiotics, owing to serious drug-resistance bacteria. However, limited bioactivity and potential biotoxicity of some AMPs was neglected, attributable to their hydrophobic structure with positive charges and nonspecific destruction of cell membranes. Various strategies have been used to design and biosynthetic optimized AMPs to improve their bioactivity, productivity, while lowering host toxicity and cost. Here, we focus on the progress made in understanding the AMPs, including biosynthesis (AMP-BioDesign 1.0 and 2.0), bioactivity (e.g. immune regulation and broad-spectrum or nonspecific actions against bacteria, viruses or parasites), and principle biotoxicity (e.g. hemolysis, acute toxicity and instability, ect). The application prospects of AMP for human health, clinical medicine (for novel drugs), tissue engineering and drug delivery system, respectively, are summarized in this review. Furthermore, future prospects and new strategy for the development of effective and low-toxic AMP formulations for human health are discussed.

Despite multiple virus outbreaks over the past decade, including the devastating coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the lack of accurate and timely diagnosis and treatment technologies has wreaked havoc on global biosecurity. The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated proteins (Cas) system has the potential to address these critical needs for tackling infectious diseases to detect viral nucleic acids and inhibit viral replication. This review summarizes how the CRISPR/Cas system is being utilized for the treatment and diagnosis of infectious diseases with the help of biosafety materials and highlights the design principle and in vivo and in vitro efficacy of advanced biosafety materials used to deal with virus attacks.

Infectious disease outbreaks have seriously endangered global health owing to the scarcity of testing materials and techniques. Diversified materials and methods should be urgently developed for rapid detection and discrimination of pathogenic microorganisms. Conjugated polymer (CP) materials are macromolecular compounds comprising numerous covalently bonded luminescent units. They have excellent light-harvesting and optical signal amplification capabilities owing to the transmission of excitation energy along their backbone. In recent years, CP materials have aroused research enthusiasm in the biosensors field because of their outstanding optoelectronic properties. This brief manuscript provides an overall review of recent progress achieved in CP-based systems for pathogen sensing.

The outbreak of viral infections are serious threat to human life and health. However, there remains to be a lack of effective treatments and prophylactic measures against some viral infections. Additionally, there are numerous challenges in developing vaccines and antiviral drugs (e.g., antibodies and protein inhibitors), such as low immunogenicity of vaccines, difficulties in storing vaccines, instability and easy degradation of protein drugs, and lack of drug selectivity. Protein-based biomaterials can interact with antiviral drugs or vaccines to achieve synergistic or enhanced effects, making them a promising antiviral tool with many advantages. Silk fibroin has the potential to stabilize liquid vaccines at room temperature. Elastin-like polypeptide modification can improve the stability and yield of virus-neutralizing antibodies. Drugs in combination with β-casein or serum albumin (SA) has good prospects in treating human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections. Moreover, the greatest value of SA as a protein-based antiviral material lies in its ability to target the liver and macrophages. In the future, combination with SA (direct conjugation or encapsulation with drugs) may be a better treatment strategy for viral hepatitis and HIV infections because it leads to fewer adverse reactions. In addition, self-assembling protein nanoparticles (SApNPs) are found to improve vaccine immunogenicity. The combination of multiple viral immunogens and multiple SApNPs produces different promising vaccine candidates, thus highlighting the value of SApNPs. This review aimed to discuss the current status and future prospects for the development of protein-based biomaterials to combat viral infections.

Infectious diseases are an increasing threat to global biosafety. Vaccination is the most effective and cost-efficient method for preventing and controlling infectious diseases. The development of new vaccines is inextricably linked to the advancement of materials that serve as essential components of vaccines, such as antigens, adjuvants, and their carriers. The physicochemical and biological properties of vaccines—such as the kinetics of antigen retention and presentation—are determined by the material compositions of vaccines and carriers, affecting the overall efficacy. The sustained release of antigens prolongs their retention time in germinal centers and improves humoral immune responses. Pulsatile release that imitates clinical dosing regimens can improve patient adherence to vaccination, affording increased vaccine coverage. Herein, we review progress of materials innovation on altering vaccine release kinetics, which affects the overall vaccine efficacy, safety, and compliance.

Pathogenic bacterial infection is severely threatening public health globally. The multi-modal antibacterial nanoplatforms could significantly improve the antibacterial efficiency. Here, we report a metal(Ti)-organic framework (MOF) derived nanocarbon (C-Ti-MOF) as a biosafety material for synergistic sterilization of pathogenic bacteria via efficient photodynamic catalysis and robust photothermal effects. The C-Ti-MOF consists of abundant TiO₂ nanodots embedded in graphitic carbon frameworks. Under visible light irradiation, TiO₂ nanodots can catalyze H₂O₂ and O₂ to produce superoxide anion (·O₂^-) and singlet oxygen (¹O₂), respectively. Meanwhile, under near-infrared irradiation (NIR), C-Ti-MOF can generate massive heat to destroy bacterial membranes. Systematic antibacterial experiments reveal that the C-Ti-MOF nanoagents have a long-lasting and nearly 100% bactericidal ratio at an extremely low dose (0.16 mg/mL), which is much better than the state-of-the-art TiO₂ (Commercial TiO₂ (P25), 0.64 mg/mL). Furthermore, the C-Ti-MOF can be electrospun into an antibacterial nanofiber membrane via mixing with polymeric matrix for treating bacteria-contaminated wastewater, and the membranes possess integrated antibacterial activity and excellent biocompatibility. Our study demonstrates a promising Ti-MOF-based biosafety material for efficient and long-life disinfection, which may stimulate new research in MOF-related biological applications in various disciplines ranging from water decontaminations to nanotherapeutics.