Contribution of Nanotechnology in the Fight Against COVID-19

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a respiratory infectious disease caused by a newly discovered virus strain, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-Cov-2). This pandemic spread quickly across nations with a high mortality rate in immunocompromised patients. This contagious disease posed a serious threat to health systems. It impacted the continents of the earth in a way that could not have been predicted. Therefore, many leading funding agencies announced the call for proposal to diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 pandemic using advanced technology-based methods, including nanotechnology. The researchers coming from the nanotechnology community can contribute their efforts to cope with COVID-19. As a community member of nanotechnology, we suggest some new research targets that can be designed and improved, optimized, and developed the existing/new materials in the sub-field of diagnostics and healthcare of nanotechnology. The potential research targets to fight against COVID-19 includes Point-of-care diagnostics (POCD), surveillance and monitoring, novel therapeutics, vaccine development, research, and development, repurposing existing drugs with potential therapeutic applications, development of antiviral nanocoating/antimicrobial spray-based coating for PPE, magnetic nanoparticles and viral RNA and rapid detection kits.

Identification of phytochemical inhibitors against main protease of COVID-19 using molecular modeling approaches.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a novel corona virus that causes corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The COVID-19 rapidly spread across the nations with high mortality rate even as very little is known to contain the virus at present. In the current study, we report novel natural metabolites namely, ursolic acid, carvacrol and oleanolic acid as the potential inhibitors against main protease (Mpro) of COVID-19 by using integrated molecular modeling approaches. From a combination of molecular docking and molecular dynamic (MD) simulations, we found three ligands bound to protease during 50 ns of MD simulations. Furthermore, the molecular mechanic/generalized/Born/Poisson-Boltzmann surface area (MM/G/P/BSA) free energy calculations showed that these chemical molecules have stable and favourable energies causing strong binding with binding site of Mpro protein. All these three molecules, namely, ursolic acid, carvacrol and oleanolic acid, have passed the ADME (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, and Excretion) property as well as Lipinski's rule of five. The study provides a basic foundation and suggests that the three phytochemicals, viz. ursolic acid, carvacrol and oleanolic acid could serve as potential inhibitors in regulating the Mpro protein's function and controlling viral replication. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.