The outbreak of COVID-19 and subsequent mutant variants has caused millions of deaths and severe acute respiratory illness worldwide. Therapeutics such as monoclonal antibodies, small molecule drugs inhibiting viral replication and immune modulators suppressing hyperinflammation have shown promise, but each comes with limitations including viral variant escape, side effects from high doses of I.V. injection, and lack of localized specificity. The variant outbreaks have emphasized the unmet need for better treatment regimens, particularly those that can simultaneously recognize and bind strongly to different variants, have high targeting specificity to reduce adverse effects and that appropriately target the innate immune system driven lung-infiltration.
Researchers at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University have developed a novel nanostructured drug platform that uniquely integrates the advantages of antiviral targeting specificity, virus mediated inhibition of host cell viral replication and viral infected microenvironment management of innate immune system. This new nanodrug platform can be tuned specifically to a target of interest, which includes various spikes of SARS-CoV-2 variants including the wild type, Delta and Omicron and integrates small molecule antivirals and immune modulators to improve antiviral efficiency.
This nanodrug platform has great potential to significantly improve SARS-CoV-2 or other virus antiviral efficiency by improving pan-variant specificity, decreasing the dosage through nasal spray intake, and lessening the adverse effect of antiviral drugs.
Potential Applications
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Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 and variants
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Treatment of other viruses
Benefits and Advantages
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Antiviral targeting specificity
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Selective recognition and tight capture of SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins with high-affinity to neutralize and block SARS-CoV-2 variants
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Higher affinity than mAbs
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Virus mediated inhibition of host cell viral replication
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Targeted delivery of antiviral drugs into the infected host cell
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Viral infected microenvironment management of the innate immune system
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Via utilization of immune modulators and nasal spray treatment
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Amenable to nasal spray intake
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Reduced adverse effects compared to antiviral drugs
For more information about the inventor(s) and their research, please see