Over the past few decades, gene therapy has gained immense importance in medical research as a promising treatment strategy for diseases such as cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, and many genetic disorders. When a gene needs to be delivered to a target cell inside the human body, it has to pass a large number of barriers through the extracellular and intracellular environment. This is why the delivery of naked genes and nucleic acids is highly unfavorable, and gene delivery requires suitable vectors that can carry the gene cargo to the target site and protect it from biological degradation. To date, medical research has come up with two types of gene delivery vectors, which are viral and nonviral vectors. The ability of viruses to protect transgenes from biological degradation and their capability to efficiently cross cellular barriers have allowed gene therapy research to develop new approaches utilizing viruses and their different genomes as vectors for gene delivery. Although viral vectors are very efficient, science has also come up with numerous nonviral systems based on cationic lipids, cationic polymers, and inorganic particles that provide sustainable gene expression without triggering unwanted inflammatory and immune reactions, and that are considered nontoxic. In this review, we discuss in detail the latest data available on all viral and nonviral vectors used in gene delivery. The mechanisms of viral and nonviral vector-based gene delivery are presented, and the advantages and disadvantages of all types of vectors are also given.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has created tremendous panic around the globe amid rapid transmission and high mortality. The virus emerged from China in December 2019 and spread to over 200 countries. The number of cases in USA and Europe has surpassed that of China. Epidemiologists believe that more cases and deaths may occur till undefined time period. During the current health crisis when scientific community is battling hard to contain the COVID-19, provision of timely and authenticative information in a composite document based on recent findings carries substantial value. To the best of author's knowledge, there is no comprehensive review on COVID-19 till date. In this context, current manuscript is aimed to provide amalgamated information in a single document to healthcare professionals, researchers and the general public regarding the outbreak-turned-pandemic of COVID-19. This systematic review discusses epidemiology, pathogenesis, transmission, clinical manifestations, severity, treatment, prevention, vaccination, medication repositioning, potential drug candidates, and control and public awareness of COVID-19. Key Words: COVID-19, Pandemic, Epidemiology, Virology, SARS-CoV-2, World Health Organization, Corona Virus.

Stupendous elevation in the healthcare costs has followed with the inception of the current unconventional options of treatment available for cancer patients. There is a dire need of innovative financing approaches to lessen the financial load on healthcare system. Biosimilars are biological drugs consisting of an active ingredient from a reference biological drug that has a great potential of relieving financial load. Strict requirements from regulatory point of view are required as biosimilars are exceedingly similar to but not identical to the reference product. This provides with a certainty that no consequential differences from clinical point of view as compared to the respective biologics exists with regards to efficacy, safety and purity. Safety and effectiveness of biosimilars have been disclosed since more than 10 years of affirmations. However, there is a need to educate the healthcare professionals to abolish potential misconceptions and coalesce biosimilars into regular clinical practice. The present review focuses on providing an overview of regulatory aspects and requirements for biosimilars, the main challenges in the selection and development of biosimilars and the economic impact and financial savings observed in recent studies carried out in different parts of the world. In addition, we have discussed the different successful comparative studies which have been done in different parts of the world to depict the biosimilarity for monoclonal antibodies such as bevacizumab, trastuzumab and rituximab.