Spotlight March 2021: Is Nanotechnology the Swiss Army Knife against Future Pandemics?

Home > Spotlight March 2021: Is Nanotechnology the Swiss Army Knife against Future Pandemics?

The COVID 19 outbreak has led to a fundamental rethinking of existing approaches to diagnosis, treatment, and prevention methods. The need for better and more efficient concepts is global and urgent. Nanotechnology has long been at the forefront of innovation and has led to advances in many different disciplines. Could this interdisciplinary field help develop a more comprehensive approach to combating COVID-19 as well as future pandemics?

This review published in the journal ACS NANO provides a general introduction to the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), the progression of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) along with an overview of current vaccines. Additionally, some of the attempts to stop the first interaction of the virus with the target cells as well as preventing life-threatening processes are illustrated in detail. In this context, the interdisciplinary authors present and discuss several potential advantages of nanotechnology and the critical role it could have in the fight against COVID-19 and future pandemics both inside and outside the host. The authors highlight the multifunctional solutions offered by materials in the nanoscale e.g., by combining diagnostic and therapeutic into one. These nanotechnology-based-systems can increase the specificity and therefore the efficiency of immunosuppressant delivery to targeted cells resulting in a reduction of drug dose and drug distribution to nontarget organs. The authors also explain in detail the multiple ways, nanomaterials can assist vaccines or immunization research for example by boosting the upregulation required by the immune system or redirecting the immune response against antigens. Nanotechnology may similarly offer pathways to slow the spread of COVID-19; in this review, the development of self-disinfecting surfaces that would avoid contamination at hospitals or homes is also presented. Finally, to highlight the multifunctionality of nanomaterials, the authors examine how nanotechnology-based solutions could increase the safety of air-filtering devices such as masks.

Those interested in a more detailed description of emerging nanoscale materials or examples can read them in the original publication:

Weiss, C., Carriere, M., Fusco, L., Capua, I., Regla-Nava, J.A., Pasquali, M., Scott, J.A., Vitale, F., Unal, M.A., Mattevi, C. and Bedognetti, D., 2020. Toward nanotechnology-enabled approaches against the COVID-19 pandemic. ACS nano, 14(6), pp.6383-6406. DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c03697

Spotlight March 2021: Is Nanotechnology the Swiss Army Knife against Future Pandemics?

Weitere Spotlights


Spotlight June 2022: From small to clever – What does the future hold for the safety and sustainability of advanced materials?

Spotlight June 2022: From small to clever – What does the future hold for the safety and sustainability of advanced materials?

The smallest particles in materials research, nanoparticles, have occupied us intensively for more than 20 years to elucidate and further investigate their safety for humans and the environment. Now, however, the development is going from “small = nano” to “clever = advanced”, as discussed in a contribution by international scientists. Thereby, it is a great […]

Read more

Spotlight February 2022: Probabilistic risk assessment – the keystone for the future of toxicology

Spotlight February 2022: Probabilistic risk assessment – the keystone for the future of toxicology

The basics of toxicology are constantly being reconsidered, and the approach to risk assessment is therefore constantly being put to the test, because, as William Osler is cited in this publication, “Medicine (toxicology) is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability“. In this recent paper, the team around Thomas Hartung (Johns-Hopkins University/University of […]

Read more

Spotlight November 2022: Photonics in nature and bioinspired designs

Spotlight November 2022: Photonics in nature and bioinspired designs

Science has always taken nature as a model and imitated it. If you look at the field of photonics, i.e. the use of optical technologies for information processing, transmission or storage, the colorful examples in the animal and plant world are perfect basic drawers for technical applications. While colors in nature are used either for […]

Read more

Spotlight January 2023: Special issue on Methods and Protocols in Nanotoxicology published

Spotlight January 2023: Special issue on Methods and Protocols in Nanotoxicology published

In the first Spotlight of the new year, we present a special issue on methods and protocols in nanotoxicology published in the journal Frontiers in Toxicology. There are still too few harmonized protocols accepted by the scientific community. To improve this situation, project activities are started and special issues of journals like this one are […]

Read more

Skip to content