Advances in inorganic nanoparticles-based drug delivery in targeted breast cancer theranostics.

Theranostic nanoparticles (NPs) have the potential to dramatically improve cancer management by providing personalized medicine. Inorganic NPs have attracted widespread interest from academic and industrial communities because of their unique physicochemical properties (including magnetic, thermal, and catalytic performance) and excellent functions with functional surface modifications or component dopants (e.g., imaging and controlled release of drugs). To date, only a restricted number of inorganic NPs are deciphered into clinical practice. This review highlights the recent advances of inorganic NPs in breast cancer therapy. We believe that this review can provides various approaches for investigating and developing inorganic NPs as promising compounds in the future prospects of applications in breast cancer treatment and material science.

Biomedical applications of electrospun polycaprolactone-based carbohydrate polymers: A review.

Carbohydrate used in biomedical applications is influenced by numerous factors. One of the most appealing characteristic of carbohydrates is their ability to reproduce from natural resources which makes them ecologically friendly. Due to their abundance, biocompatibility, and no contamination by residual initiators, the desire for polysaccharides in medical uses is growing. Research on fiber-based materials, with a variety of medical applications including bio-functional scaffolds, continues to yield novel and intriguing findings. Almost all biopolymers of diverse structural compositions are electrospun to fulfill biomedical usage criteria, and the electrospinning technique is widely employed in biomedical technologies for both in-vivo and in-vitro therapies. Due to its biocompatibility and biodegradability, polycaprolactone (PCL) is employed in medical applications like tissue engineering and drug delivery. Although PCL nanofibers have established effects in vitro, more research is needed before their potential therapeutic application in the clinic. Here we tried to focus mainly on the carbohydrate incorporated PCL-based nanofibers production techniques, structures, morphology, and physicochemical properties along with their usage in biomedicine.

Antiviral Polymers: A Review.

Polymers, due to their high molecular weight, tunable architecture, functionality, and buffering effect for endosomal escape, possess unique properties as a carrier or prophylactic agent in preventing pandemic outbreak of new viruses. Polymers are used as a carrier to reduce the minimum required dose, bioavailability, and therapeutic effectiveness of antiviral agents. Polymers are also used as multifunctional nanomaterials to, directly or indirectly, inhibit viral infections. Multifunctional polymers can interact directly with envelope glycoproteins on the viral surface to block fusion and entry of the virus in the host cell. Polymers can indirectly mobilize the immune system by activating macrophages and natural killer cells against the invading virus. This review covers natural and synthetic polymers that possess antiviral activity, their mechanism of action, and the effect of material properties like chemical composition, molecular weight, functional groups, and charge density on antiviral activity. Natural polymers like carrageenan, chitosan, fucoidan, and phosphorothioate oligonucleotides, and synthetic polymers like dendrimers and sialylated polymers are reviewed. This review discusses the steps in the viral replication cycle from binding to cell surface receptors to viral-cell fusion, replication, assembly, and release of the virus from the host cell that antiviral polymers interfere with to block viral infections.

Potential small-molecule drugs as available weapons to fight novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV): A review.

Since the new coronavirus known as 2019-nCoV (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, SARS-CoV-2) has widely spread in Wuhan, China, with severe pneumonia, scientists and physicians have made remarkable efforts to use various options such as monoclonal antibodies, peptides, vaccines, small-molecule drugs and interferon therapies to control, prevent or treatment infections of 2019-nCoV. However, no vaccine or drug has yet been confirmed to completely treat 2019-nCoV. In this review, we focus on the use of potential available small-molecule drug candidates for treating infections caused by 2019-nCoV.

Nano-based methods for novel coronavirus 2019 (2019-nCoV) diagnosis: A review.

Today, tremendous attention has been devoted to a new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (2019-nCoV), due to severe effects on the global public in all over the world. Rapid and accurate diagnosis of 2019-nCoV are important for early treatment and cutting off epidemic transmission. In this regard, laboratory detection protocols, such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and computed tomography (CT) examination, have been utilized broadly for 2019-nCoV detection. Recently, nano-based methods for 2019-nCoV diagnoses are rapidly expanding and declaring comparable results with PCR and CT. In this review, recent advances in nano-based techniques have been highlighted and compared briefly with PCR and CT as well-known methods for 2019-nCoV detection.