Bioscience News - GEG Tech top picks

A team of French researchers has come up with an anti-Covid solution which is an alternative to a vaccination and which could be ready for use  in the form of a nasal spray. They have created a peptide, made up of natural amino acids which lures the virus to it by mimicking the ACE2 lock, and so prevents it from entering into human cells. They have tested it on pulmonary cells and found it has worked without any toxic reaction to humans. These first-in-class blocking peptide mimics represent powerful tools that might be used in prophylactic and therapeutic approaches to fight the coronavirus disease 2019.

Therapeutic nanosystems and diagnostic systems are increasingly being applied to various areas of medicine, acting as sensors, delivery vehicles, immunostimulants, radiation sensitizers and viral inhibitors. In an article recently published in the journal Pharmaceutics, the application of nanomaterials in the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of viral diseases is reviewed in detail, highlighting areas of significant progress or stagnation over the past decades. Drug delivery is the primary focus of nanomaterials in disease treatment, generally offering improved pharmacokinetics, drug retention time, and "drug-like" of the administered compound. The physical and chemical properties of the nanoparticle strongly influence the biodistribution of the nanomedicine in the body and the ability and propensity of the particle to enter the target cells. In addition to being used as a delivery vehicle, the nanoparticles themselves can be used as viral therapy, acting to block the viral replication cycle or cell entry. Particles constructed from copper, silver and gold are also capable of generating reactive oxygen species. In addition to being directly damaging to viral genetic material, it can induce apoptosis in infected cells, thus preventing viral propagation.