COVID-19 under spotlight: A close look at the origin, transmission, diagnosis, and treatment of the 2019-nCoV disease

Months after the outbreak of a new flu-like disease in China, the entire world is now in a state of caution. The subsequent less-anticipated propagation of the novel coronavirus disease, formally known as COVID-19, not only made it to headlines by an overwhelmingly high transmission rate and fatality reports, but also raised an alarm for the medical community all around the globe. Since the causative agent, SARS-CoV-2, is a recently discovered species, there is no specific medicine for downright treatment of the infection. This has led to an unprecedented societal fear of the newly born disease, adding a psychological aspect to the physical manifestation of the virus. Herein, the COVID-19 structure, epidemiology, pathogenesis, etiology, diagnosis, and therapy have been reviewed. © 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Application of Nanobiotechnology for Early Diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract: A most discussed topic of the new decade, COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the recently discovered SARS-CoV-2. With an exceedingly high transmission rate, COVID-19 has affected almost all the countries in the world. Absent any vaccine or specific treatment, the humanity is left with nothing but the legacy method of quarantine. However, quarantine can only be effective when combined with early diagnosis of suspected cases. With their high sensitivity and unmatched specificity, biosensors have become an area of interest for development of novel diagnostic methods. Compared to the more traditional diagnostics, nanobiotechnology introduces biosensors as different diagnostics with greater versatility in application. Today, a growing number of analytes are being accurately identified by these nanoscopic sensing machines. Several reports of validated application with real samples further strengthen this idea. As of recent, there has been a rise in the number of studies on portable biosensors. Despite the slow progression, certain devices with embedded biosensors have managed to be of diagnostic value in several countries. The perceptible increase in development of mobile platforms has revolutionized the healthcare delivery system in the new millennium. The present article reviews the most recent advancements in development of diagnostic nanobiosensors and their application in the clinical fields. Key points: � There is no specific treatment for highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2. � Early diagnosis is critical for control of pandemic. � Highly sensitive/specific nanobiosensors are emerging assets against COVID-19. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature

Biomedical applications of zeolite-based materials: A review

Zeolites are crystalline, hydrated aluminosilicates of alkali earth cations, consisting of 3D frameworks of SiO44� and AlO45� tetrahedral, linked through the shared oxygen atoms, which have been widely applied in multifarious technological approaches such as adsorbents, catalysts, ion exchangers, molecular sieves for separation, and sorting the molecules according to their crystalline size dimensions. On the other hand, the unique and outstanding physical and chemical properties of zeolite materials such as porous character, ion exchangeability, water absorption capacity, immunomodulatory and antioxidative effects, biocompatibility and long-term chemical and biological stability, make them increasingly useful in various filed of biomedicine including drug delivery systems, wound healing, scaffolds used in tissue engineering, anti-bacterial and anti-microbial, implant coating, contrast agents, harmful ions removal from the body, gas absorber, hemodialysis, and teeth root filling. Therefore, this review focuses on the more recent advances of the use of zeolites in various biomedical applications feedbacks especially drug delivery, regenerative medicine, and tissue engineering with special emphasis on their biomaterial perspectives. © 2020 Elsevier B.V

An update on sputum MicroRNAs in lung cancer diagnosis

Lung cancer is one of the leading cause of cancer mortality in the world. It is well known that genetic damages could result in lung tumor genesis. Despite years of research, the survival rate of the patients has not been markedly improved. According to lack of high sensitivity and specificity in diagnostic tests, just about 15-20 of lung cancer cases are discovered prior to progression of the disease. In last decade, sputum biomarkers have been developed for early detection/diagnosis of lung cancer. MicroRNAs are a class of small endogenous noncoding RNAs, which act as post-transcriptional regulators. Some specific miRNAs can have multifunctions in lung development and their aberrant expression could induce lung tumor genesis. The differences in miRNAs between the normal and cancerous lung lead to emerging of a novel type of biomarkers, which can be helpful in screening of high risk individuals, diagnosis of lung cancer as well as its therapy. Diagn. Cytopathol. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Protective Immunity Against Homologous and Heterologous Influenza Virus Lethal Challenge by Immunization with New Recombinant Chimeric HA2-M2e Fusion Protein in BALB/C Mice

Influenza is an acute and highly contagious respiratory disease. The error prone RNA polymerase and segmented nature of the influenza A virus genome allow antigenic drift and shift, respectively. Therefore, most influenza vaccines are inefficient along time and against different viral subtypes. In this study, for the first time, protection properties of a new recombinant fusion of HA2 and M2e peptides originated from influenza virus A/Brisbane/59/2007-like (H1N1) in BALB/c mice model were investigated. After immunization of the BALB/c mice, the protection property of fusion peptide was determined by a neutralizing assay test. For further study, mice were lethal challenged by the (mouse adapted, A/PR8/34 H1N1) and heterologous (mouse adapted, A/Brisbane/10/2007 H3N2) influenza virus subtypes. Then, the lung viral titers, body weight, and survival rate of the immunized mice were monitored. The results showed that immunization by the M2e-HA2 recombinant fusion peptide provides strong protection against homologous challenge and an infirm protection against heterologous. These protections against homologous and heterologous influenza A virus challenges meant the universal nature of these recombinant peptides in an immunity manner against influenza A virus. However, more studies are needed to optimize this recombinant construction, and this experiment recommends HA2-M2e fusion peptide as a universal influenza A vaccine candidate. © Copyright 2016, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc