Rapid person-to-person transfer of viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 and their occasional mutations owing to the human activity and climate/ecological changes by the mankind led to creation of wrecking worldwide challenges. Such fast transferable pathogens requiring practical diagnostic setups to control their transfer chain and stop sever outbreaks in early stages of their appearance. Herein, we have addressed this urgent demand by designing a rapid electrochemical diagnostic kit composed of fixed/screen printed electrodes that can detect pathogenic viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 and/or animal viruses through the differentiable fingerprint of their viral glycoproteins at different voltage positions. The working electrode of developed sensor is activated upon coating a layer of coupled graphene oxide (GO) with sensitive chemical compounds along with gold nanostars (Au NS) that can detect the trace of viruses in any aquatic biological media (e.g., blood, saliva and oropharyngeal/nasopharyngeal swab) through interaction with active functional groups of their glycoproteins. The method do not require any extraction and/or biomarkers for detection of target viruses and can identify trace of different pathogenic viruses in about 1 min. The nanosensor also demonstrated superior limit of detection (LOD) and sensitivity of 1.68 × 10 −22 μg mL −1 and 0.0048 μAμg.mL −1 . cm −2 , respectively, toward detection of SARS-CoV-2 in biological media, while blind clinical evaluations of 100 suspected samples furtherly confirmed the superior sensitivity/specificity of developed nanosystem toward rapid identification of ill people even at incubation and prodromal periods of illness.

. Both knowledge and attitude can play key roles in the prevention of novel COVID-19. This cross-sectional study was conducted on a statistical sample of pregnant women in southwestern Iran between March and April 2020 to evaluate their knowledge and attitude toward this condition. So, pregnant mothers registered in antenatal clinics affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences were called and asked to fill in a three-part online questionnaire including sociodemographic characteristics, obstetric/medical history, and knowledge/attitude toward COVID-19. P -values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. The mean score of knowledge among 540 respondents was 34 (±4.1) out of 43. Also, 44.3% answered more than 80% of the items correctly. Higher knowledge scores were accordingly associated with marriage duration, area of residence, health insurance coverage, socioeconomic status (SES), and self-rated health status. However, a strong relationship was found between knowledge, SES, and health insurance coverage with reference to multivariate analysis results. Moreover, majority of the pregnant women and their households expressed their concern about using preventive measures against COVID-19. Although most respondents were moderately worried about becoming infected with COVID-19, 264 (48.9%) cases reported that they were very much anxious about their newborns being infected with COVID-19 and 388 (71.9%) individuals asserted that they were worried about their mortality due to this infection. Besides, most mothers maintained that they had some degrees of rumination, which could interfere with their routine daily chores. Hence, health policy-makers should pay much focus on educating pregnant mothers to help them prevent mental exhaustion.

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Today, nanomedicine seeks to develop new polymer composites to overcome current problems in diagnosing and treating common diseases, especially cancer. To achieve this goal, research on polymer composites has expanded so that, in recent years, interdisciplinary collaborations between scientists have been expanding day by day. The synthesis and applications of bioactive GQD-based polymer composites have been investigated in medicine and biomedicine. Bioactive GQD-based polymer composites have a special role as drug delivery carriers. Bioactive GQDs are one of the newcomers to the list of carbon-based nanomaterials. In addition, the antibacterial and anti-diabetic potentials of bioactive GQDs are already known. Due to their highly specific surface properties, π-π aggregation, and hydrophobic interactions, bioactive GQD-based polymer composites have a high drug loading capacity, and, in case of proper correction, can be used as an excellent option for the release of anticancer drugs, gene carriers, biosensors, bioimaging, antibacterial applications, cell culture, and tissue engineering. In this paper, we summarize recent advances in using bioactive GQD-based polymer composites in drug delivery, gene delivery, thermal therapy, thermodynamic therapy, bioimaging, tissue engineering, bioactive GQD synthesis, and GQD green resuscitation, in addition to examining GQD-based polymer composites.

Nowadays, pollution of the environment is a huge problem for humans and other organisms’ health. Conventional methods of pollutant removal like membrane filtration or ion exchange are not efficient enough to lower the number of pollutants to standard levels. Biological methods, because of their higher efficiency and biocompatibility, are preferred for the remediation of pollutants. These cost-effective and environment-friendly methods of reducing pollutants are called bioremediation. In bioremediation methods, enzymes play the most crucial role. Enzymes can remedy different types of organic and inorganic pollutants, including PAHs, azo dyes, polymers, organocyanides, lead, chromium, and mercury. Different enzymes isolated from various species have been used for the bioremediation of pollutants. Discovering new enzymes and new subtypes with specific physicochemical characteristics would be a promising way to find more efficient and cost-effective tools for the remediation of pollutants.