An update on novel approaches for diagnosis and treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection

Safarchi, Azadeh; Fatima, Shadma; Ayati, Zahra; Vafaee, Fatemeh

The ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has made a serious public health and economic crisis worldwide which united global efforts to develop rapid, precise, and cost-efficient diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics. Numerous multi-disciplinary studies and techniques have been designed to investigate and develop various approaches to help frontline health workers, policymakers, and populations to overcome the disease. While these techniques have been reviewed within individual disciplines, it is now timely to provide a cross-disciplinary overview of novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches summarizing complementary efforts across multiple fields of research and technology. Accordingly, we reviewed and summarized various advanced novel approaches used for diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 to help researchers across diverse disciplines on their prioritization of resources for research and development and to give them better a picture of the latest techniques. These include artificial intelligence, nano-based, CRISPR-based, and mass spectrometry technologies as well as neutralizing factors and traditional medicines. We also reviewed new approaches for vaccine development and developed a dashboard to provide frequent updates on the current and future approved vaccines. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13578-021-00674-6.