Using nucleic acid delivery as an antiviral strategy

Generally speaking, viral infections pose a greater risk than bacterial infections and challenge the available therapeutic strategies. For example, and just in the past few decades, respiratory tract viral infections have created devastating pandemics (e.g., SARS pandemic in 2003, Middle East respiratory syndrome or MERS pandemic in 2012, and, of course, COVID-19 in 2020) with many victims. While prophylactic approaches have enjoyed significant advances with mRNA vaccines and monoclonal antibodies, treatment options for patients who are already infected remain limited. Antiviral small-molecule drugs usually show less than optimal efficiency and are often associated with severe side effects. Nucleic acids could be an important alternative for antiviral therapy. For example, small interfering RNA (siRNA) is a powerful tool for post-transcriptional RNA interference (RNAi)- mediated protein silencing and has been studied for targeting viral proteins within infected cells.

This Special Issue aims to provide a forum for researchers to share their most recent findings in this area. We welcome research, review, and meta-analysis papers that focus on the use of nucleic acids as prophylactic and/or therapeutic approaches in viral infections. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

- Delivering mRNA vaccines: LNPs and beyond
- Use of siRNA in respiratory tract viral infections
- Nucleic acid delivery against HIV
- Nucleic acid delivery against viral hepatitis
- CRISPR/Cas9 as an antiviral strategy

Article types and fees

This Special Issue accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Special Issue description:

• Brief Research Report
• Editorial
• Letter to the Editor
• Mini Review
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Special Issue accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Special Issue description:

• Brief Research Report
• Editorial
• Letter to the Editor
• Mini Review
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: acid delivery, RNA (siRNA), mRNA vaccines