Life Sciences & Biotechnology
Title : | Development of redox nanomaterials based point-of-care nanofibrous device for infectious mucormycosis "Black Fungus" rapid detection and capturing |
Area of research : | Life Sciences & Biotechnology |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Chinmaya Mahapatra, National Institute Of Technology (NIT) Raipur, Chhattisgarh |
Timeline Start Year : | 2022 |
Timeline End Year : | 2024 |
Contact info : | cmahapatra.bt@nitrr.ac.in |
Details
Executive Summary : | Fungal infection occurs mostly in people whose immune systems are weakened or who are receiving corticosteroid therapy. Lipid formulation of amphotericin B (Am-B) is of high cost, special storage conditions, degradability issue, and low efficiency the present antifungal nanoformulation has failed to lower the black fungus infection. Furthermore, the often need for a long duration of treatments, or the high frequency of use of these agents facilitates the emergence of immune resistance therefore, despite the availability of traditional and modern antifungal drugs, the prevalence of mycotic infections is still increasing. Corticosteroids are often given to people who are very sick with COVID-19. Mucormycosis is a very rare disease, even though it is on the rise in India right now. Administration of drugs, adjunctive application of hyperbaric oxygen, recombinant cytokines or transfusion of granulocyte, surgical debridement, and prosthetic obturator are the methods that are not successful in the management of mucormycosis. Therefore Early diagnosis is the key to delivery the antifungal medications in time-dependent manner to combat mucormycosis prevalent during COVID-19 infection. This is also applicable to control other fungal pathogens including MDR (Mucormycosis developed resistance) apart from mucormycosis. Cerium dioxide (CeO2), as a rare-earth material, has a variety of properties at the nanoscale like acting as a powerful catalyst (antioxidant) and pharmacological agents.. In addition, Cerium oxide has been found to be antifungal due to its antioxidant-based strong radical scavenging activity, in which the antifungal mechanism is by denaturing of the cell wall by the production of submolecular levels of H2O2 that destabilizes the cell wall structure. The conversion of Ce3+ to Ce4+ gives the colorimetric changes in the cerium ions that could be spectrophotometrically detectable. Specifically, this mechanism is manyfold enhanced when it is represented in a nanofibrous form giving the capacity to specifically target black fungus and capture it for further diagnosis. So the development of a point-of-care nanofibrous device for infectious mucormycosis "Black Fungus" rapid detection and capturing of infectious and immerging fungal diseases like black fungus is the need of the hour. |
Total Budget (INR): | 23,08,920 |
Patents : | 1 |
Organizations involved