Biosafety materials: Ushering in a new era of infectious disease diagnosis and treatment with the CRISPR/Cas system.

Despite multiple virus outbreaks over the past decade, including the devastating coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the lack of accurate and timely diagnosis and treatment technologies has wreaked havoc on global biosecurity. The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated proteins (Cas) system has the potential to address these critical needs for tackling infectious diseases to detect viral nucleic acids and inhibit viral replication. This review summarizes how the CRISPR/Cas system is being utilized for the treatment and diagnosis of infectious diseases with the help of biosafety materials and highlights the design principle and in vivo and in vitro efficacy of advanced biosafety materials used to deal with virus attacks.

Combination of chemistry and material science to overcome health problems.

Since its outbreak, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has strongly influenced the life of the general public around the world. Based on its fast spread and high mortality, there is a need for novel therapeutic treatments to overcome this global health crisis. While medicinal chemistry is focused on the development of highly selective and affine inhibitors toward a specific target enzyme, material science is focused on the development of nanomaterials for selective drug delivery. Based on the individual strengths, these disciplines could synergistically act together and help overcome the limitations of the respective approach. Herein, the combination of medicinal chemistry with material science to overcome health problems with the example of SARS-CoV-2 is critically discussed.

Biosafety chemistry and biosafety materials: A new perspective to solve biosafety problems.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has rapidly swept around the globe since its emergence near 2020. However, people have failed to fully understand its origin or mutation. Defined as an international biosafety incident, COVID-19 has again encouraged worldwide attention to reconsider the importance of biosafety due to the adverse impact on personal well-being and social stability. Most countries have already taken measures to advocate progress in biosafety-relevant research, aiming to prevent and solve biosafety problems with more advanced techniques and products. Herein, we propose a new concept of biosafety chemistry and reiterate the notion of biosafety materials, which refer to the interdisciplinary integration of biosafety and chemistry or materials. We attempt to illustrate the exquisite association that chemistry and materials science possess with biosafety -science, and we hope to provide a pragmatic perspective on approaches to utilize the knowledge of these two subjects to handle specific biosafety issues, such as detection and disinfection of pathogenic microorganisms, personal protective equipment, vaccine adjuvants and specific drugs, etc.. In addition, we hope to promote multidisciplinary cooperation to strengthen biosafety research and facilitate the development of biosafety products to defend national security in the future.