Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health, Health (social science), Pollution
7
Scopus Publications
Scopus Publications
The use of algae in vaccine development – A review Ashwini Aher, Sunil Thitame Multidisciplinary Reviews, 2026 Algae have emerged as a promising and versatile platform in modern vaccine development due to their unique biological properties, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. This review summarizes recent advances in the use of microalgae and macroalgae as sustainable biofactories for vaccine antigens, adjuvants, and delivery systems. Algal expression systems—particularly Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Dunaliella salina, and Spirulina species—enable the safe production of recombinant proteins, virus-like particles, and oral vaccine candidates with reduced risk of contamination by human pathogens. The immunogenic potential of algal-derived polysaccharides and sulfated compounds as natural adjuvants is also discussed, highlighting their ability to enhance both humoral and cellular immune responses. Furthermore, algae-based vaccines offer advantages such as oral delivery, thermal stability, low production costs, and suitability for large-scale manufacturing, making them attractive for use in low- and middle-income countries. Despite these benefits, challenges related to regulatory approval, standardization, and optimization of expression yields remain. Overall, this review underscores the growing role of algae in next-generation vaccine development and their potential contribution to global immunization strategies.
Nanotechnology-enhanced CRISPR systems for gene therapy – A review Mohammad Affan Kareem, Ashwini Aher, Sunil Thitame Multidisciplinary Reviews, 2025 With the arrival of CRISPR‒Cas systems, transformative pathways for gene therapy have been created to bring genetic changes of precise gene alterations to treat a range of genetic, oncological, and infectious diseases. However, despite its potential, CRISPR technology’s clinical application is currently limited by delivery inefficiencies, off-target effects, and immunogenicity. Newly formed nanocarriers are providing improved CRISPR delivery, targeting, and precision editing. This review describes how nanomaterials such as lipid-based nanoparticles, polymeric carriers, and metallic nanoparticles, provide more efficient delivery and improve therapeutic efficacy, thus overcoming these obstacles. These nanoparticles improve cellular uptake, diminish immune responses, and facilitate targeted delivery overcoming common barriers to CRISPR delivery. We explore several types of nanomaterial to target different CRISPR delivery methods, such as lipid nanoparticles for RNA-based CRISPR systems, polymeric particles to deliver DNA, or protein, for CRISPR delivery and discuss their advantages for improving CRISPR precision and reducing the off-target effect. The controlled release and maximum therapeutic outcome is also explored with hybrid nanomaterials and responsive nanocarriers. We also review current preclinical applications for cancer, cystic fibrosis, and genetic disorders and illustrate their therapeutic potential in disease-specific contexts using nanotechnology-enabled CRISPR systems. In addition to providing safety and regulatory considerations pertinent to clinical translation and ethical questions arising from the convergence of nanotechnology and gene editing, the review takes a critical look at the progress in the field. In the future, we expect that continued advancement in nanomaterial design and CRISPR engineering will help bring this combined approach to clinical viability and enable the development of personalized, targeted therapies not only with increased precision but increased safety as well. This novel approach, pairing CRISPR gene editing with nanotechnology delivery opens the door to this transformative way of tuning gene therapy throughout medicine.