From Bench to the Clinic: The Path to Translation of Nanotechnology-Enabled mRNA SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines

Diana O Lopez-Cantu; Xichi Wang; Hector Carrasco-Magallanes; Samson Afewerki; Xingcai Zhang; Joseph V Bonventre; Guillermo U Ruiz-Esparza

doi:10.1007/s40820-021-00771-8

From Bench to the Clinic: The Path to Translation of Nanotechnology-Enabled mRNA SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines

Nanomicro Lett. 2022 Jan 3;14(1):41. doi: 10.1007/s40820-021-00771-8.

Authors

Diana O Lopez-Cantu^{1

2

3

4}, Xichi Wang^{1

2

3

5}, Hector Carrasco-Magallanes^{6

7}, Samson Afewerki^{1

2}, Xingcai Zhang^{8

9}, Joseph V Bonventre^{10

11

12}, Guillermo U Ruiz-Esparza^{13

14

15}

Affiliations

¹ Division of Engineering in Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
² Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard University - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
³ Division of Renal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
⁴ Tecnologico de Monterrey, School of Engineering and Sciences, 64849, Monterrey, NL, Mexico.
⁵ Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430022, People's Republic of China.
⁶ Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
⁷ Tecnologico de Monterrey, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, 64849, Monterrey, NL, Mexico.
⁸ John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA. xingcai@mit.edu.
⁹ School of Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA. xingcai@mit.edu.
¹⁰ Division of Engineering in Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. jbonventre@bwh.harvard.edu.
¹¹ Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard University - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. jbonventre@bwh.harvard.edu.
¹² Division of Renal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. jbonventre@bwh.harvard.edu.
¹³ Division of Engineering in Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. gruizeh@bwh.harvard.edu.
¹⁴ Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard University - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. gruizeh@bwh.harvard.edu.
¹⁵ Division of Renal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. gruizeh@bwh.harvard.edu.

Abstract

During the last decades, the use of nanotechnology in medicine has effectively been translated to the design of drug delivery systems, nanostructured tissues, diagnostic platforms, and novel nanomaterials against several human diseases and infectious pathogens. Nanotechnology-enabled vaccines have been positioned as solutions to mitigate the pandemic outbreak caused by the novel pathogen severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. To fast-track the development of vaccines, unprecedented industrial and academic collaborations emerged around the world, resulting in the clinical translation of effective vaccines in less than one year. In this article, we provide an overview of the path to translation from the bench to the clinic of nanotechnology-enabled messenger ribonucleic acid vaccines and examine in detail the types of delivery systems used, their mechanisms of action, obtained results during each phase of their clinical development and their regulatory approval process. We also analyze how nanotechnology is impacting global health and economy during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus; Nanovaccines; SARS-CoV-2; mRNA.

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Review

Abstract

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