Search

The SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic has seen rapid spread, disease mobidities and death associated with substantive social, economic and societal impact. Treatments rely on re-purposed antivirals and immune modulatory agents focusing on attenuating the acute respiratory distress syndrome. No curative therapies exist. Vaccines remain the best hope for disease control and elimination and the principal global effort with success now being realized. Herein, we summarize those developments with a focus on the role played by nanocarrier delivery.

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has improved the quality and duration of life for people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. However, limitations in drug efficacy, emergence of viral mutations and the paucity of cell-tissue targeting remain. We posit that to maximize ART potency and therapeutic outcomes newer drug formulations that reach HIV cellular reservoirs need be created. In a step towards achieving this goal we harnessed the aggregation-induced emission (AIE) property of the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor rilpivirine (RPV) and used it as a platform for drug cell and subcellular tracking. RPV nanocrystals were created with endogenous AIE properties enabling the visualization of intracellular particles in cell and tissue-based assays. The intact drug crystals were easily detected in CD4+ T cells and macrophages, the natural viral target cells, by flow cytometry and ultraperformance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. We conclude that AIE can be harnessed to monitor cell biodistribution of selective antiretroviral drug nanocrystals.