In December 2019, a new and highly pathogenic coronavirus emerged—coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), quickly spread throughout the world. In response to this global pandemic, a few vaccines were allowed for emergency use, beginning in November 2020, of which the mRNA-based vaccines by Moderna (Moderna, Cambridge, MA, USA) and BioNTech (BioTech, Mainz, Germany)/Pfizer (Pfizer, New York, NY, USA) have been identified as the most effective ones. The mRNA platform allowed rapid development of vaccines, but their global use is limited by ultracold storage requirements. Most resource-poor countries do not have cold chain storage to execute mass vaccination. Therefore, determining strategies to increase stability of mRNA-based vaccines in relatively higher temperatures can be a game changer to address the current global pandemic and upcoming new waves. In this review, we summarized the current research strategies to enhance stability of the RNA vaccine delivery system.

An altered redox status accompanied by an elevated generation of reactive oxygen/nitrogen species (ROS/RNS) has been implicated in a number of diseases including colorectal cancer (CRC). CRC, being one of the most common cancers worldwide, has been reported to be associated with multiple environmental and lifestyle factors (e.g., dietary habits, obesity, and physical inactivity) and harboring heightened oxidative stress that results in genomic instability. Although under normal condition ROS regulate many signal transduction pathways including cell proliferation and survival, overwhelming of the antioxidant capacity due to metabolic abnormalities and oncogenic signaling leads to a redox adaptation response that imparts drug resistance. Nevertheless, excessive reliance on elevated production of ROS makes the tumor cells increasingly vulnerable to further ROS insults, and the abolition of such drug resistance through redox perturbation could be instrumental to preferentially eliminate them. The goal of this review is to demonstrate the evidence that links redox stress to the development of CRC and assimilate the most up-to-date information that would facilitate future investigation on CRC-associated redox biology. Concomitantly, we argue that the exploitation of this distinct biochemical property of CRC cells might offer a fresh avenue to effectively eradicate these cells.

The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked unprecedented public health and social measures (PHSM) by national and local governments, including border restrictions, school closures, mandatory facemask use and stay at home orders. Quantifying the effectiveness of these interventions in reducing disease transmission is key to rational policy making in response to the current and future pandemics. In order to estimate the effectiveness of these interventions, detailed descriptions of their timelines, scale and scope are needed. The Health Intervention Tracking for COVID-19 (HIT-COVID) is a curated and standardized global database that catalogues the implementation and relaxation of COVID-19 related PHSM. With a team of over 200 volunteer contributors, we assembled policy timelines for a range of key PHSM aimed at reducing COVID-19 risk for the national and first administrative levels (e.g. provinces and states) globally, including details such as the degree of implementation and targeted populations. We continue to maintain and adapt this database to the changing COVID-19 landscape so it can serve as a resource for researchers and policymakers alike.

Transdermal vaccination route using biodegradable microneedles is a rapidly progressing field of research and applications. The fear of painful needles is one of the primary reasons most people avoid getting vaccinated. Therefore, developing an alternative pain-free method of vaccination using microneedles has been a significant research area. Microneedles comprise arrays of micron-sized needles that offer a pain-free method of delivering actives across the skin. Apart from being pain-free, microneedles provide various advantages over conventional vaccination routes such as intramuscular and subcutaneous. Microneedle vaccines induce a robust immune response as the needles ranging from 50 to 900 mm in length can efficiently deliver the vaccine to the epidermis and the dermis region, which contains many Langerhans and dendritic cells. The microneedle array looks like band-aid patches and offers the advantages of avoiding cold-chain storage and self-administration flexibility. The slow release of vaccine antigens is an important advantage of using microneedles. The vaccine antigens in the microneedles can be in solution or suspension form, encapsulated in nano or microparticles, and nucleic acid-based. The use of microneedles to deliver particle-based vaccines is gaining importance because of the combined advantages of particulate vaccine and pain-free immunization. The future of microneedle-based vaccines looks promising however, addressing some limitations such as dosing inadequacy, stability and sterility will lead to successful use of microneedles for vaccine delivery. This review illustrates the recent research in the field of microneedle-based vaccination.

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First detected in Wuhan, China, a highly contagious coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), also known as COVID-19, spread globally in December of 2019. As of 19 September 2021, approximately 4.5 million people have died globally, and 215 million active cases have been reported. To date, six vaccines have been developed and approved for human use. However, current production and supply capabilities are unable to meet global demands to immunize the entire world population. Only a few countries have been able to successfully vaccinate many of their residents. Therefore, an alternative vaccine that can be prepared in an easy and cost-effective manner is urgently needed. A vaccine that could be prepared in this manner, as well as can be preserved and transported at room temperature, would be of great benefit to public health. It is possible to develop such an alternative vaccine by using nano- or microparticle platforms. These platforms address most of the existing vaccine limitations as they are stable at room temperature, are inexpensive to produce and distribute, can be administered orally, and do not require cold chain storage for transportation or preservation. Particulate vaccines can be administered as either oral solutions or in sublingual or buccal film dosage forms. Besides improved patient compliance, the major advantage of oral, sublingual, and buccal routes of administration is that they can elicit mucosal immunity. Mucosal immunity, along with systemic immunity, can be a strong defense against SARS-CoV-2 as the virus enters the system through inhalation or saliva. This review discusses the possibility to produce a particulate COVID vaccine by using nano- or microparticles as platforms for oral administration or in sublingual or buccal film dosage forms in order to accelerate global vaccination.

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The dimeric complex acetato(eta4-cycloocta-1,5-diene)rhodium(I), [Rh(O2CMe)(eta4-cod)]2 (cod = cycloocta-1,5-diene) reacts with N,O-chelating Schiff-base ligands or with N-phenylglycine to afford the diminato- or aminocarboxylato(4-cycloocta-1,5-diene)rhodium(I) complexes [{Rh(eta4-cod)}2(salen)] (1), [{Rh(eta4-cod)}2(salophen)] (2), [Rh((S)-N-phenylglycinato)(eta4-cod)] (3S), [Rh(rac-N-phenylglycinato)(eta4-cod)] (3rac), [Rh((R)-N-(4-methoxphenyl)ethyl-2-oxo-1-naphthaldiminato)(eta4-cod)] (4) and [Rh(N-(o-tolyl)-2-oxo-1-naphthaldiminato)(eta4-cod)] (5) [salen2- = N,N-ethylene-bis(salicylaldiminato), salophen2- = N,N-(1,2-phenylene)-bis(salicylaldiminato)]. The complexes are characterized by IR-, UV/Vis-, 1H/13C-NMR- and mass-spectroscopy. Complexes 1, 2, 4 and 5 contain six-membered metallaaromatic Rh-(N-CCC-O)-chelate rings which accept C-H...pi contacts. The crystal structure of 2 presents a polymorph (dimorph) (2a) to a previously reported structure (2b, CSD refcode SCLIRB10). Polymorphic forms 2a and 2b are traced to a different interlocking of adjacent dinuclear molecules with their corrugated van der Waals surface. The achiral N-phenylglycine ligand gives a chiral N-phenylglycinato complex [Rh(O2C-CH2-NHPh)(eta4-cod)] (3) with the nitrogen atom becoming the stereogenic center upon metal coordination. Complex 3 can crystallize as the enantiomorph 3S in the tetragonal, chiral space group P41 in a spontaneous resolution of the racemic mixture into homo-chiral helix-enantiomers due to inter-molecular N-H...O hydrogen bonding which connects only molecules of the same (S-) configuration into (right-handed or P-) 41-helical chains. Variation of the crystallization conditions gives 3 as a racemic polymorphic 3rac. R- and S-complexes 3 assemble in the polymorph 3rac in parallel chains along the 21-axes through N-HO hydrogen bonding. Again, only molecules of the same configuration are combined into a chain, albeit neighboring chains have complexes of opposite configuration. The chiral enantiomeric naphthaldiminato complex 4 displays a herring-bone arrangement. Achiral compound 5 crystallizes in the non-centrosymmetric polar space group Cc where all molecules show the same orientation.