新型冠状病毒疫苗设计原理与研究进展

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant losses to the global community. The pathogen, called SARSCoV-2, showed high infection rate and certain case-fatality rate, which bring great challenges to treatments. Vaccination is the major way for epidemic prevention which attracts several developers to conduct COVID-19 vaccine studies. This paper presents the design principle of a COVID-19 vaccine and summarizes the latest research progress on vaccine development. The authors hope to provide insights for understanding vaccine study of COVID-19.     

化学教学新课堂：科学抗疫中的化学知识

As the break out of COVID-19 epidemic, the prevention and control work was consequently carried out. Chemistry plays an important role in the white war. The structure of mask contains the knowledge of interfacial chemistry. The material of mask encompasses the knowledge of polymer chemistry. Nucleic acid test and COVID-19 vaccine research need the knowledge of biological chemistry. The sanitizers involve the knowledge of inorganic and organic chemistry. The knowledge of physical chemistry takes effect in daily hand washing with soap. Each drug against COVID-19 virus was a complex organic compound. All the above things can be taken as appropriate examples in chemistry teaching to display the charm of chemistry. Meanwhile, these examples help students to realize that chemistry works as a vital part in our lives and therefore active their motivation to study chemistry well.     

Brief survey on phytochemicals to prevent COVID-19

BackgroundThe recent pandemic by COVID-19 is a global threat to human health. The disease is caused by SARS-CoV-2 and the infection rate is increased more quickly than MERS and SARS as their rapid adaptation to varied climatic conditions through rapid mutations. It becomes more severe due to the lack of proper therapeutic drugs, insufficient diagnostic tool, scarcity of appropriate drug, life supporting medical facility and mostly lack of awareness. Therefore, preventive measure is one of the important strategies to control. In this context, herbal medicinal plants received a noticeable attention to treat COVID-19 in Indian subcontinent. Here, 44 Indian traditional plants have been discussed with their novel phytochemicals that prevent the novel corona virus. The basic of SARS-CoV-2, their common way of transmission including their effect on immune and nervous system have been discussed. We have analysed their mechanism of action against COVID-19 following in-silico analysis. Their probable mechanism and therapeutic approaches behind the activity of phytochemicals to stimulate immune response as well as inhibition of viral multiplication discussed rationally. Thus, mixtures of active secondary metabolites/phytochemicals are the only choice to prevent the disease in countries where vaccination will take long time due to overcrowded population density.     

新冠疫情与科学教育*——国外与新冠疫情相关的科学教育研究述评

新冠疫情是一个全球性的历史事件,科学教育也深受新冠疫情的影响。对新冠疫情爆发以来收录在Scopus数据库中的49篇有关科学教育的文章进行分类综述,主要围绕:新冠疫情下远程科学教育的机遇与挑战;新冠疫情:一个重要的社会性科学议题;HPS在新冠疫情时代对科学教育的贡献;由新冠疫情反思科学教育标准与科学素养;新冠疫情下的非正规科学教育与可持续教育等5个方面展开述评,总结新冠疫情中科学教育的经验以反思科学教育、前瞻后疫情时代的科学教育。     

Therapeutic Potential of Resveratrol in COVID-19-Associated Hemostatic Disorders

Coagulation disorders, endotheliopathy and inflammation are the most common hallmarks in SARS-CoV-2 infection, largely determining COVID-19’s outcome and severity. Dysfunctions of endothelial cells and platelets are tightly linked in contributing to the systemic inflammatory response that appears to be both a cause and a consequence of COVID-19-associated coagulation disorders and thrombotic events. Indeed, elevated levels of circulating inflammatory cytokines are often associated with abnormal coagulation parameters in COVID-19 patients. Although treatments with low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) have shown beneficial effects in decreasing patient mortality with severe COVID-19, additional therapeutic strategies are urgently needed. Utilizing the anti-inflammatory and anti-thrombotic properties of natural compounds may provide alternative therapeutic approaches to prevent or reduce the risk factors associated with pre-existing conditions and comorbidities that can worsen COVID-19 patients’ outcomes. In this regard, resveratrol, a natural compound found in several plants and fruits such as grapes, blueberries and cranberries, may represent a promising coadjuvant for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. By virtue of its anti-thrombotic and anti-inflammatory properties, resveratrol would be expected to lower COVID-19-associated mortality, which is well known to be increased by thrombosis and inflammation. This review analyzes and discusses resveratrol’s ability to modulate vascular hemostasis at different levels targeting both primary hemostasis (interfering with platelet activation and aggregation) and secondary hemostasis (modulating factors involved in coagulation cascade).     

Current Status of COVID-19 (Pre)Clinical Vaccine Development

The current COVID-19 pandemic has a tremendous impact on daily life world-wide. Despite the ability to dampen the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of the diseases, through restrictive interventions, it is believed that only effective vaccines will provide sufficient control over the disease and revert societal live back to normal. At present, a double-digit number of efforts are devoted to the development of a vaccine against COVID-19. Here, we provide an overview of these (pre)clinical efforts and provide background information on the technologies behind these vaccines. In addition, we discuss potential hurdles that need to be addressed prior to mass scale clinical translation of successful vaccine candidates.     

Molecular docking identification for the efficacy of natural limonoids against COVID-19 virus main protease

COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest public health problem of the century so far.The main protease (Mpro) is one of the main enzymes studied as a pharmacological target. In this context, the present work aimed to perform a virtual screening of possible inhibitors against the enzyme Mpro, having limonoids as the main object of research as supposed inhibitors. Molecular docking simulations indicated that limonoids have an affinity to complex with M-pro.However, Limonine and Nimoliciol showed nonspecific and low affinity interactions. In conclusion, Limonoids are substances of natural origin that can be used in the study of new pharmacological tools designed to combat and understand COVID-19.     

Comprehensive analyses of bioinformatics applications in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic

Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which can be transmitted from person to person. As of September 21, 2021, over 228 million cases were diagnosed as COVID-19 infection in more than 200 countries and regions worldwide. The death toll is more than 4.69 million and the mortality rate has reached about 2.05% as it has gradually become a global plague, and the numbers are growing. Therefore, it is important to gain a deeper understanding of the genome and protein characteristics, clinical diagnostics, pathogenic mechanisms, and the development of antiviral drugs and vaccines against the novel coronavirus to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The traditional biology technologies are limited for COVID-19-related studies to understand the pandemic happening. Bioinformatics is the application of computational methods and analytical tools in the field of biological research which has obvious advantages in predicting the structure, product, function, and evolution of unknown genes and proteins, and in screening drugs and vaccines from a large amount of sequence information. Here, we comprehensively summarized several of the most important methods and applications relating to COVID-19 based on currently available reports of bioinformatics technologies, focusing on future research for overcoming the virus pandemic. Based on the next-generation sequencing (NGS) and third-generation sequencing (TGS) technology, not only virus can be detected, but also high quality SARS-CoV-2 genome could be obtained quickly. The emergence of data of genome sequences, variants, haplotypes of SARS-CoV-2 help us to understand genome and protein structure, variant calling, mutation, and other biological characteristics. After sequencing alignment and phylogenetic analysis, the bat may be the natural host of the novel coronavirus. Single-cell RNA sequencing provide abundant resource for discovering the mechanism of immune response induced by COVID-19. As an entry receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) can be used as a potential drug target to treat COVID-19. Molecular dynamics simulation, molecular docking and artificial intelligence (AI) technology of bioinformatics methods based on drug databases for SARS-CoV-2 can accelerate the development of drugs. Meanwhile, computational approaches are helpful to identify suitable vaccines to prevent COVID-19 infection through reverse vaccinology, Immunoinformatics and structural vaccinology.     

Synthesis and molecular docking study of novel COVID-19 inhibitors

In 2020, the world tried to combat the corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic. A proven treatment method specific to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is still not found. In this study, seven new antiviral compounds were designed for COVID-19 treatment. The ability of these compounds to inhibit COVID-19’s RNA processing was calculated by the molecular docking study. It has been observed that the compounds can have high binding affinities especially against NSP12 (between -9.06 and -8.00 kcal/mol). The molecular dynamics simulation of NSP12-ZG 7 complex proved the stability of interaction. The synthesis of two most active molecules was performed by one-pot reaction and characterized by FT-IR, ¹H-NMR, ¹³C-NMR, and mass spectroscopy. The compounds presented with their synthesis are inhibitory core structures against SARS-CoV-2 infection.     

Nano-Biomimetic Drug Delivery Vehicles: Potential Approaches for COVID-19 Treatment

The current COVID-19 pandemic has tested the resolve of the global community with more than 35 million infections worldwide and numbers increasing with no cure or vaccine available to date. Nanomedicines have an advantage of providing enhanced permeability and retention and have been extensively studied as targeted drug delivery strategies for the treatment of different disease. The role of monocytes, erythrocytes, thrombocytes, and macrophages in diseases, including infectious and inflammatory diseases, cancer, and atherosclerosis, are better understood and have resulted in improved strategies for targeting and in some instances mimicking these cell types to improve therapeutic outcomes. Consequently, these primary cell types can be exploited for the purposes of serving as a “Trojan horse” for targeted delivery to identified organs and sites of inflammation. State of the art and potential utilization of nanocarriers such as nanospheres/nanocapsules, nanocrystals, liposomes, solid lipid nanoparticles/nano-structured lipid carriers, dendrimers, and nanosponges for biomimicry and/or targeted delivery of bioactives to cells are reported herein and their potential use in the treatment of COVID-19 infections discussed. Physicochemical properties, viz., hydrophilicity, particle shape, surface charge, composition, concentration, the use of different target-specific ligands on the surface of carriers, and the impact on carrier efficacy and specificity are also discussed.     

老药新用抗击新冠肺炎*

新冠肺炎疫情爆发以来,临床上通过老药新用的策略发展小分子药物,以用于治疗新冠肺炎。在短时间内迅速从抗病毒、抗炎药物中发现能够用于新冠治疗的药物,如洛匹那韦/利托那韦、磷酸氯喹等。结合几款典型的药物,浅析它们在抗击新冠肺炎中的应用。     

Nano-enabled biosensing systems for intelligent healthcare: towards COVID-19 management

Biosensors are emerging as efficient (sensitive and selective) and affordable analytical diagnostic tools for early-stage disease detection, as required for personalized health wellness management. Low-level detection of a targeted disease biomarker (pM level) has emerged extremely useful to evaluate the progression of disease under therapy. Such collected bioinformatics and its multi-aspects-oriented analytics is in demand to explore the effectiveness of a prescribed treatment, optimize therapy, and correlate biomarker level with disease pathogenesis. Owing to nanotechnology-enabled advancements in sensing unit fabrication, device integration, interfacing, packaging, and sensing performance at point-of-care (POC) has rendered diagnostics according to the requirements of disease management and patient disease profile i.e. in a personalized manner. Efforts are continuously being made to promote the state of art biosensing technology as a next-generation non-invasive disease diagnostics methodology. Keeping this in view, this progressive opinion article describes personalized health care management related analytical tools which can provide access to better health for everyone, with overreaching aim to manage healthy tomorrow timely. Considering accomplishments and predictions, such affordable intelligent diagnostics tools are urgently required to manage COVID-19 pandemic, a life-threatening respiratory infectious disease, where a rapid, selective and sensitive detection of human beta severe acute respiratory system coronavirus (SARS-COoV-2) protein is the key factor.     

The Systemic Inflammation Index on Admission Predicts In-Hospital Mortality in COVID-19 Patients

Background. The rapid onset of a systemic pro-inflammatory state followed by acute respiratory distress syndrome is the leading cause of mortality in patients with COVID-19. We performed a retrospective observational study to explore the capacity of different complete blood cell count (CBC)-derived inflammation indexes to predict in-hospital mortality in this group. Methods. The neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), derived NLR (dNLR), platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR), mean platelet volume to platelet ratio (MPR), neutrophil to lymphocyte × platelet ratio (NLPR), monocyte to lymphocyte ratio (MLR), systemic inflammation response index (SIRI), systemic inflammation index (SII), and the aggregate index of systemic inflammation (AISI) were calculated on hospital admission in 119 patients with laboratory confirmed COVID-19. Results. Non-survivors had significantly higher AISI, dNLR, NLPR, NLR, SII, and SIRI values when compared to survivors. Similarly, Kaplan–Meier survival curves showed significantly lower survival in patients with higher AISI, dNLR, MLR, NLPR, NLR, SII, and SIRI. However, after adjusting for confounders, only the SII remained significantly associated with survival (HR = 1.0001; 95% CI, 1.0000–1.0001, p = 0.029) in multivariate Cox regression analysis. Conclusions. The SII on admission independently predicts in-hospital mortality in COVID-19 patients and may assist with early risk stratification in this group.     

关于应对疫情开展化学类专业课程线上教学的探究

This paper aims at the implementation of the online courses of chemistry majors in Sichuan University in response to the epidemic, and explores a more effective and reasonable way to organize teaching. Based on the investigation and feedback of teachers and students, this paper points out the difficulties and challenges of online teaching at the present stage:the classroom interaction and discussion are not smooth, the online teaching tools and methods are diversified, and the chemistry laboratory courses are not matched. Therefore, the School of Chemistry of Sichuan University will coordinate the online teaching platform, enhance the classroom interaction, and launch the "chemistry virtual simulation experiment teaching center" to ensure the teaching progress and quality during the epidemic prevention and control.     

新型冠状病毒(COVID-19)的检测和诊断

2019年12月以来席卷全球的新型冠状病毒(COVID-19)肺炎是一种高传染性疾病,给全球社会、经济和生活带来了巨大的负面影响,严重威胁人类的生命安全。由于尚无用于COVID-19的特定药物或疫苗,快速及时的检测和诊断对于控制疫情至关重要。本文介绍了目前检测COVID-19的方法,主要比较了CT检测、核酸检测和抗体检测在检测COVID-19中各自发挥的作用,总结了各种方法的优势和不足之处,综述了各种方法的最新研究进展。病毒分离是检测病毒感染的黄金标准,但是要求严格的条件,这些条件多数实验室和医院无法满足。CT检查可以直接看到症状,但是存在特异性低的局限;核酸检测能提供直接的证据,是当前检测新型冠状病毒的主要方法,但是存在假阳性;抗体检测能提供非直接的证据,适于进行筛查工作,但是其无法用于感染的早期诊断且可能得到假阳性或假阴性结果。本文提出了联合使用和综合判读可以从技术和时间差上互补,并对未来的发展趋势和研究重点进行了展望。     

Antiviral Effects of Green Tea EGCG and Its Potential Application against COVID-19

(–)-Epigallocatechin-3-O-gallate (EGCG), the most abundant component of catechins in tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze), plays a role against viruses through inhibiting virus invasiveness, restraining gene expression and replication. In this paper, the antiviral effects of EGCG on various viruses, including DNA virus, RNA virus, coronavirus, enterovirus and arbovirus, were reviewed. Meanwhile, the antiviral effects of the EGCG epi-isomer counterpart (+)-gallocatechin-3-O-gallate (GCG) were also discussed.     

Sustainable chemical preventive models in COVID-19: Understanding,innovation, adaptations,and impact

COVID-19 is considered as a major public health problem caused by the SARS CoV-2. This Viral infection is known to induce worldwide pandemic in short period of time. Emerging evidence suggested that the transmission control and drug therapy may influence the preventive measures extensively as the host surrounding environment and pathogenic mechanism may contribute to the pandemic condition earlier in COVID-19 disease. Although, several animals identified as reservoir to date, however human-to-human transmission is well documented. Human beings are sustaining the virus in the communities and act as an amplifier of the virus. Human activities i.e., living with the patient, touching patient waste etc. in the surrounding of active patients or asymptomatic persons cause significant risk factors for transmission. On the other hand, drug target and mechanism to destroy the virus or virus inhibition depends on diversified approaches of drugs and different target for virus life cycle. This article describes the sustainable chemical preventive models understanding, requirements, technology adaptation and the implementation strategies in these pandemic-like situations. As the outbreak progresses, healthcare models focused on transmission control through disinfections and sanitization based on risk calculations. Identification of the most suitable target of drugs and regional control model of transmission are of high priority. In the early stages of an outbreak, availability of epidemiological information is important to encourage preventive measures efforts by public health authorities and provide robust evidence to guide interventions. Here, we have discussed the level of adaptations in technology that research professionals display toward their public health preventive models. We should compile a representative data set of adaptations that humans can consider for transmission control and adopt for viruses and their hosts. Overall, there are many aspects of the chemical science and technology in virus preventive measures. Herein, the most recent advances in this context are discussed, and the possible reasons behind the sustainable preventive model are presented. This kind of sustainable preventive model having adaptation and implementation with green chemistry system will reduce the shedding of the virus into the community by eco-friendly methods, and thus the risk of transmission and infection progression can be mitigated.     

State-of-the-art colloidal particles and unique interfaces-based SARS-CoV-2 detection methods and COVID-19 diagnosis

In March 2020, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-based infections were declared ‘COVID-19 pandemic’ by the World Health Organization. Pandemic raised the necessity to design and develop genuine and sensitive tests for precise specific SARS-CoV-2 infections detection. Nanotechnological methods offer new ways to fight COVID-19. Nanomaterials are ideal for unique sensor platforms because of their chemically versatile properties and they are easy to manufacture. In this context, selected examples for integrating nanomaterials and distinct biosensor platforms are given to detect SARS-CoV-2 biological materials and COVID-19 biomarkers, giving researchers and scientists more goals and a better forecast to design more relevant and novel sensor arrays for COVID-19 diagnosis.