:
Over the last two decades, drug delivery systems have evolved at a tremendous rate. Synthetic nanoparticles have
played an important role in the design of vaccine and their delivery as many of them have shown improved safety and
efficacy over conventional formulations. Nanocarriers formulated by natural, biological building blocks have become an
important tool in the field biomedicine. A successful nanocarrier must have certain properties like evading the host immune
system, target specificity, cellular entry, escape from endosomes, and ability to release material into the cytoplasm. Some or
all of these functions can be performed by viruses making them a suitable candidate for naturally occurring nanocarriers.
Moreover, viruses can be made non-infectious and non-replicative without compromising their ability to penetrate cells thus
making them useful for a vast spectrum of applications. Currently, various carrier molecules are under different stages of
development to become bio-nano capsules. This review covers the advances made in the field of viruses as potential
nanocarriers and discusses the related technologies and strategies to target specific cells by using virus inspired nanocarriers.
In future, these virus-based nano-formulations will be able to provide solutions towards pressing and emerging infectious
diseases.