Summary and Outlook - Viral Nanoparticles: Tools for Materials Science and Biomedicine - page 245

In medicine, VNPs have been applied in diagnostic assays, as vaccines,
imaging modalities, and targeted therapeutic devices. This area of research
shows great promise, and the next phase of investigation will necessitate
a more detailed understanding of the performance of VNPs and

hybrid assemblies. The next few years will provide a more sophisticated
understanding of the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties,
toxicity, and efficacy of VNPs in pre-clinical models and clinical trials.
Although a significant number of different viruses have already been
exploited as VNPs during the last 20 years, this number is a tiny fraction of
the number of viruses available for development. An enormous variety of the
viruses that infect plants, bacteria, archaea, and fungi have been structurally
and genetically characterized, revealing a vast collection of molecular
nanocontainers with different shapes, stabilities, chemical reactivities,
and potential for interaction with other nanoplatforms or with cellular
or physiologic systems. Furthermore, these characterized viruses in turn
represent a small subset of the total number of virus species found in nature.
Thus, it is expected that as new viral platforms are evaluated for their utility
as VNPs the number of possible uses for VNP technology will expand as well.
Optimization of VNP production and scale-up has already been successful
for some systems, such as vaccine production, for example, the

in vivo

Hepatitis B

and vaccines. Many other VNPs can be produced on

a relatively large scale with ease; however, the chemical functionalization
procedures have not yet been scaled up. As the application of VNP technologies
progresses toward industrial practice and clinical trials, large-scale
production, quality control, reproducibility, and safety become increasingly
important.
Viral nanotechnology has grown out of its infancy, and a new era has begun
in which pathogens have become tailorable nanoscale building materials.
Many studies summarized in this volume emphasize the outstanding potential
of VNPs. Viral nanotechnology will continue to be an inspiring and fast-paced
field, one that holds great promise for the development of next-generation
devices and therapeutics.

Human papilloma virus