Nanomedicine’s Role in the COVID-19 Vaccine Development and Optimization

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease that turned into a pandemic and led to seven million deaths around the globe. A herculean effort was made by world scientific community to develop various therapies including vaccines against COVID-19 in record time. Use of nanomedicine was one among the different treatment strategies tried against COVID-19. Nanocarriers were effectively used in delivery of vaccines based on live attenuated/inactivated viruses, protein subunits, virus-vectored, Viral-like Particle (VLP), and DNA. Various nanoplatforms such as lipid, polymeric, protein, and cellular vesicle nanoparticles were employed to develop various vaccines against COVID-19. Several novel nanoparticles based on existing nanoformulations platforms and certain new nanoparticle preparatory techniques are in pipelines around the world. In the current chapter we have comprehensively discussed the role of nanomedicine in boosting immune response with a special focus on the development and optimization of vaccines against COVID-19.