Pharmacological treatments of COVID-19

The viral infection due to the new coronavirus or coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which was reported for the first time in December 2019, was named by the World Health Organization (WHO) as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV2), because of the very similar genome and also its related symptoms to SARS-CoV1. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic with significant mortality, morbidity, and socioeconomic impact is considered by the WHO as a global public health emergency. Since there is no specific treatment available for SARS-CoV2 infection, and or COVID-19, several clinical and sub-clinical studies are currently undertaken to find a gold-standard therapeutic regimen with high efficacy and low side effect. Based on the published scientific evidence published to date, we summarized herein the effects of different potential therapies and up-to-date clinical trials. The review is intended to help readers aware of potentially effective COVID-19 treatment and provide useful references for future studies. © 2020, Maj Institute of Pharmacology Polish Academy of Sciences

Microwave Enabled One-Pot, One-Step Fabrication and Nitrogen Doping of Holey Graphene Oxide for Catalytic Applications

The unique properties of holey graphene sheet, referred to graphene sheet with nanoholes in its basal plane, lead to wide range of applications, which cannot be achieved by its nonporous counterpart. However, its large scale solution based production requires graphene oxide (GO) or reduced GO (rGO) as starting materials, which take hours to days for their fabrication. Here, we report our unexpected discovery that GO with or without holes can be controllably, directly, and rapidly (tens of seconds) fabricated from graphite powder via a one-step-one-pot microwave assisted reaction with a production yield of 120 wt% of graphite. Furthermore, a fast and low temperature approach is developed for simultaneous nitrogen (N) doping and reduction of GO sheets. The N-doped holey rGO sheets demonstrate remarkable electrocatalytic capabilities toward electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction. The existence of the nanoholes not only provides a “short cut” for efficient mass transport, but also dramatically increases edges and surface area, therefore, creates more catalytic centers. The capability of rapid fabrication and N-doping as well as reduction of holey GO can lead us to develop efficient catalyst, which can replace previous coin metals for energy generation and storage, such as fuel cells and metal–air batteriesThis is the accepted version of the following article: Patel, M., Feng, W., Savaram, K., Khoshi, M. R., Huang, R., Sun, J., Rabie, E., Flach, C., Mendelsohn, R., Garfunkel, E. and He, H. (2015), Microwave Enabled One-Pot, One-Step Fabrication and Nitrogen Doping of Holey Graphene Oxide for Catalytic Applications. Small, 11: 3358–3368, which has been published in final form at https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/smll.201403402.Peer reviewe

P‑Doped Porous Carbon as Metal Free Catalysts for Selective Aerobic Oxidation with an Unexpected Mechanism

An extremely simple and rapid (seconds) approach is reported to directly synthesize gram quantities of P-doped graphitic porous carbon materials with controlled P bond configuration. For the first time, it is demonstrated that the P-doped carbon materials can be used as a selective metal free catalyst for aerobic oxidation reactions. The work function of P-doped carbon materials, its connectivity to the P bond configuration, and the correlation with its catalytic efficiency are studied and established. In direct contrast to N-doped graphene, the P-doped carbon materials with higher work function show high activity in catalytic aerobic oxidation. The selectivity trend for the electron donating and withdrawing properties of the functional groups attached to the aromatic ring of benzyl alcohols is also different from other metal free carbon based catalysts. A unique catalytic mechanism is demonstrated, which differs from both GO and N-doped graphene obtained by high temperature nitrification. The unique and unexpected catalytic pathway endows the P-doped materials with not only good catalytic efficiency but also recyclability. This, combined with a rapid, energy saving approach that permits fabrication on a large scale, suggests that the P-doped porous materials are promising materials for “green catalysis” due to their higher theoretical surface area, sustainability, environmental friendliness, and low cost