Preventing viral infections with polymeric virus catchers: A novel nanotechnological approach to anti-viral therapy

Abstract

Infectious diseases caused by viruses are among the most vexing medical issues that we are yet to solve, even with billions of dollars being spent on drugs and vaccines to combat and prevent such infections. Finding a cure or vaccine for some of the most common or the most deadly viruses such as the influenza or the Ebola virus has been a daunting task due to their constant mutation and adaptation to our attempts. Existing therapeutics that lose their effectiveness with time due to mutations have brought about the need to consider alternative treatment approaches. To cater to the ever-increasing demand for new antiviral strategies, a novel approach of using high affinity polymeric receptors prepared by a molecular imprinting technique to "catch" viruses is presented. After three hours of mixing with the template virus, a very significant reduction in infectivity titers was observed with the virus imprinted particles. The virucidal action of the imprinted particles was rapid, dose dependent on virus and polymer concentration and occurred due to specific adsorption. The fabricated nanoparticles displayed remarkable positive anti-viral results that significantly hindered viral infections as compared to the controls. This work thus successfully demonstrates the application of miniemulsion polymerization to surface imprinting of viruses and the novel application of such imprinted materials in infectious disease treatment. The findings represent a significant breakthrough in the field of molecular imprinting and antiviral therapy and we anticipate this work to be a starting point for path-breaking research in the near future. This journal is © 2013 The Royal Society of Chemistry.