Polymer-Mediated Broad Spectrum Antiviral Prophylaxis: Utility in High Risk Environments

Viral infections are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in humans throughout the world. However, modern medicine has a very limited ability to prevent viral diseases. While traditional vaccination strategies have been highly successful against a subset of viruses, the antigenic variation of viruses as well as the shear number of viral pathogens has limited the efficacy of this approach. This observation is exemplified by the finding that while most common respiratory infections are caused by Rhinoviruses, Coronaviruses, Adenoviruses and Orthomyxoviruses, a number of other viral families are also frequently implicated. Indeed, over 300 serologically distinct viruses are known to cause the pathology associated with the ‘common cold’ and ‘flu’. [Spector, 1995] Furthermore, vaccinations have yet to prove effective against the single viral family (Rhinoviruses) commonly implicated in >60% of common colds; again due to the extreme antigenic variability found within even this single viral family. As a result, there are currently no broad-spectrum anti-viral prophylactics (either prescription or over-the-counter) capable of preventing or interrupting the progression of viral infections. However, the safe, low cost, low technology, and non-toxic bioengineering of the terminally differentiated nasal pharyngeal epithelial host cells may provide a radically new antiviral prophylactic approach that gives rise to a transient, broad-spectrum, prophylaxis against virally transmitted respiratory infections (Figure 1). [ McCoy & Scott, 2005, Sutton & Scott, 2010] This polymer-based technology is derivative of the polymer-based “immunocamouflage” technology of blood cells being actively developed within the Canadian Blood Services to reduce the risk of transfusion reactions and alloimmunization to donor red blood cells. [Scott et al., 1997, Scott & Murad, 1998, Murad et al., 1999a, Murad et al., 1999b, Bradley et al., 2001, Bradley et al., 2002, Bradley & Scott, 2007, Rossi et al., 2010b] As schematically shown in Figure 1, the non-toxic bioengineering of the nasal cavity attenuates or prevents viral respiratory infections at the primary site of infection the nasopharyngeal cell surface of the upper respiratory tract. Surprisingly to some, the primary mode of viral entry in respiratory diseases is via accidental inoculation of the nasal passage via contaminated hands. As demonstrated in Figure 1A, the initial inoculum (1) is typically

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.