The Future of Nanotechnology and Quantum Dots for the Treatment of COVID-19

Today, drugs and vaccines for treating coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are being developed in Russia, China, the USA, Canada, Turkey, Germany, the UK, and Indonesia. Not all drugs for treating COVID-19 have the same functions or target the same aspects of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the cause of COVID-19. Very recently, some vaccines have been reported to effectively protect against COVID-19. Clinical vaccine trials are in phase 3 in several countries, including Indonesia, Turkey, Chile and Brazil.

A virus is an intracellular parasite with a very simple structure. Viruses lack their own metabolism and thus require a host to replicate. That is why washing one’s hands with soap is the first step in preventing the spread of viruses with a lipid membrane, such as SARS-CoV-2. Soap effectively destroys such viruses because they are self-assembled structures. However, soap cannot be used to destroy the virus within a host because the same process that destroys the virus also destroys human cells.

At the moment, much research in the area of nanotechnology is ongoing. Quantum dots (QDs) have been incorporated in many nanotechnological treatments, including drug delivery, bioimaging of cancer cells, and cancer diagnosis and treatment. Many researchers are investigating the use of new materials to treat COVID-19; possible therapies employ modified graphenes and QDs, among others. QDs are multifunctional crystalline semiconductors on a nanometer scale. Based on our studies, this QDs has fewer coordinating molecules on the surface. Nanometer-sized QDs are thermodynamically unstable but can be kept in a colloidal form to maintain stability. Due to their unique optical properties, QDs have significant potential for biomedical applications, including biomedical imaging, biosensors, drug delivery, clinical diagnosis, photodynamic therapy, DNA hybridization, and RNA profiling. Very recently, the potential of QDs for targeting virus cells has received attention. This function could be used to inhibit the activity of COVID-19.

The use of QDs to treat COVID-19 still needs more evaluation and investigation. QDscan be functioned and coated with other molecules to improve their drug delivery profile. The chemical functionality of the surface of a QD can also be controlled by a capping agent such as Schiff base compound, which provides colloidal stability, prevents agglomeration and uncontrolled growth, increases solubility, and extends the exciton lifetime of QDs.

The development of QDs and of nanostructured semiconductor crystals (which are usually under 10 nm in size) has opened new horizons in nanoscience and nanotechnology. QDs have been used in a wide range of applications in various fields, including biochemistry, physical chemistry, biomedicine, medicine, pharmaceuticals, microscopy, and engineering. QDs are also a powerful imaging probe for diagnostics and prognostics.