title: Nanomedicine for Infectious Disease Applications: Innovation towards Broad-Spectrum Treatment of Viral Infections.
abstract: Nanomedicine enables unique diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities to tackle problems in clinical medicine. As multifunctional agents with programmable properties, nanomedicines are poised to revolutionize treatment strategies. This promise is especially evident for infectious disease applications, for which the continual emergence, re-emergence, and evolution of pathogens has proven difficult to counter by conventional approaches. Herein, a conceptual framework is presented that envisions possible routes for the development of nanomedicines as superior broad-spectrum antiviral agents against enveloped viruses. With lipid membranes playing a critical role in the life cycle of medically important enveloped viruses including HIV, influenza, and Ebola, cellular and viral membrane interfaces are ideal elements to incorporate into broad-spectrum antiviral strategies. Examples are presented that demonstrate how nanomedicine strategies inspired by lipid membranes enable a wide range of targeting opportunities to gain control of critical stages in the virus life cycle through either direct or indirect approaches involving membrane interfaces. The capabilities can be realized by enabling new inhibitory functions or improving the function of existing drugs through nanotechnology-enabled solutions. With these exciting opportunities, due attention is also given to the clinical translation of nanomedicines for infectious disease applications, especially as pharmaceutical drug-discovery pipelines demand new routes of innovation.
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering and Centre for Biomimetic Sensor Science, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Drive, 637553, Singapore.
authors.forename: Joshua A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Jackman
authors.affiliation: College of Business, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 85 Hoegiro, Seoul, 130-722, Korea.
authors.forename: Jaywon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering and Centre for Biomimetic Sensor Science, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Drive, 637553, Singapore.|School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 62 Nanyang Drive, 637459, Singapore.
authors.forename: Nam-Joon
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Cho
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D062069:Inventions; D008563:Membrane Lipids / Q000378:metabolism; D050997:Nanomedicine / Q000379:methods*; D057170:Translational Research, Biomedical; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000628:therapy*
chemical_list: D008563:Membrane Lipids
keywords: antivirals; infectious diseases; nanomedicine; treatments; viruses