Volume 15 Issue 8, August 2020

Nanotechnology-based antimicrobial and antiviral formulations can prevent SARS-CoV-2 viral dissemination, and highly sensitive biosensors and detection platforms may contribute to the detection and diagnosis of COVID-19.

Nano-formulating dexamethasone, and administering it via intravenous injection or inhalation, may help to improve anti-COVID-19 treatment efficacy by targeting the potent corticosteroid drug to hyper-activated immune cells, by potentiating its anti-oedema activity and by exploiting its anti-fibrotic effects.

Nitric oxide, a gaseous neurotransmitter, can be electrochemically generated inside the brain to activate calcium ion channels, paving the way for implantable neurotransmitter probes.

A molecular reaction network translated from a computer-trained classifier can distinguish lung cancer patients from healthy individuals based on specific microRNAs in the blood.

A new electrolyte gating technique probes the dynamics of the electrical double layer at the electrode–electrolyte interface. The experiments reveal an ion nanoconfinement effect that may help to explain supercapacitor charging mechanisms.

This Review provides an overview of SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis and examines the immune-mediated approaches currently being explored for COVID-19 treatments, with an emphasis on nanotechnological tools.

This Review highlights current approaches to COVID-19 vaccine development, highlighting the role of nanotechnology, manufacturing and distribution.

A phase battery is a quantum device that provides a persistent phase bias to the wave function of a quantum circuit. A hybrid superconducting and magnetic circuit containing two anomalous Josephson junctions can provide a tunable Josephson phase that persists in the absence of external stimuli.

Tuning a flexoelectric polarization field in centrosymmetric semiconductor single crystals enables the observation of a giant flexoelectronic effect.

A solution-based ligand-exchange strategy enables the realization of close-packed quantum dot solid films with near-unity photoluminescence quantum yield and high charge carrier mobility.

Formation of interlayer excitons with high oscillator strength in a WS₂/HfS₂ heterostructure enables the realization of high-responsivity room-temperature mid- and long-wavelength infrared photodetectors.

The electronic conductivity of graphene-based porous electrodes can be modulated by their ionic charging state in supercapacitors, enabling a new in operando technique to probe the charging dynamics of electrical double layers under nanoconfinement.

Iron sulfide nanoclusters enable on-demand and local generation of nitric oxide, an important lipophilic messenger in the brain, allowing the modulation and investigation of nitric oxide-triggered neural signalling events.

Semiconducting polymer nanoparticles can act as light-sensitive interfaces with retinal neurons, and on microinjection in the eye, rescue vision in retinas affected by photoreceptor degeneration, offering a potential new treatment option for inherited retinal dystrophies and late-stage age-related macular degeneration.

A DNA molecular computation platform allows the rapid diagnosis of lung cancer with high accuracy by analysing specific miRNA levels in clinical serum samples.

DNA origami allows the precise spatial patterning of antigens to investigate the impact of antigen spacing and arrangement on B-cell activation in vitro, which is important for the design of efficient vaccination strategies.