In the last three decades, radiopharmaceuticals have proven their effectiveness for cancer diagnosis and therapy. In parallel, the advances in nanotechnology have fueled a plethora of applications in biology and medicine. A convergence of these disciplines has emerged more recently with the advent of nanotechnology-aided radiopharmaceuticals. Capitalizing on the unique physical and functional properties of nanoparticles, radiolabeled nanomaterials or nano-radiopharmaceuticals have the potential to enhance imaging and therapy of human diseases. This article provides an overview of various radionuclides used in diagnostic, therapeutic, and theranostic applications, radionuclide production through different techniques, conventional radionuclide delivery systems, and advancements in the delivery systems for nanomaterials. The review also provides insights into fundamental concepts necessary to improve currently available radionuclide agents and formulate new nano-radiopharmaceuticals.

Owing to the unique property of large surface area/volume of nanoparticles, scientific developments have revolutionized the fields of nanotechnology. Nanoparticles can be synthesized through physical, chemical, and biological routes, where biologically synthesized nanoparticles are also referred to as biogenic-synthesized nanoparticles or bionanoparticles. Bionanoparticles exploit the inherent reducing property of biological entities to develop cost-effective, non-toxic, time-efficient, sustainable, and stable nanosized particles. There is a wide array of biomedical focus on metallic nanoparticles, especially silver nanoparticles, due to their distinctive physiochemical properties making them a suitable therapeutic molecule carrier. This article aims to provide a broad insight into the various classes of living organisms that can be exploited for the development of silver nanoparticles, and elaboratively review the interdisciplinary biomedical applications of biogenically synthesized silver nanoparticles in health and life sciences domains.

According to a global estimate, the growing infection by Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1) causing development of a dreaded disease i.e., Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has been a major health risk resulting into loss of lives of about 25 million people in the last 25 years. The information available on basic biological processes in the HIV life-cycle suggest that it destroys a subpopulation of T-lymphocytes containing CD4 receptor and CXCR4 or CCR5 as a coreceptor on their surface. These molecules on cell surface are required by the virus for docking and internalization. Since the availability of a suitable vaccine against this virus is currently far from reach and the presently available synthetic antiHIV therapeutics exhibit severe toxicity and induce emergence of drug resistant mutations, it was imperative to explore plant-based principles targeting specific steps in the viral life-cycle. Moreover, the advancement in separation, purification and chemical characterization technologies for identification of natural compounds has offered promises for the usage of medicinal plants in modern drug discovery. With a few newly discovered natural products demonstrating anti-HIV potential in comparison to a vast number of previously known natural products exhibiting activity against HIV, a multiplex approach is required for exploring cost effective, safe, and efficient plant based anti-HIV drugs with very small LD50 value exhibiting efficacy at nanomolar / picomolar range. This article illustrates an updated account of information on the antiHIV-1 efficacy of some bioactive molecules isolated from different medicinal plants. Furthermore, the article highlights some chemical compounds isolated from weeds showing activity against functions of viral reverse transcriptase (HIV-1RT), protease and integrase enzymes.

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