Resilient and agile engineering solutions to address societal challenges such as coronavirus pandemic

Abstract

The world is witnessing tumultuous times as major economic powers including the US, UK, Russia, India, and most of Europe continue to be in a state of lockdown. The worst-hit sectors due to this lockdown are sales, production (manufacturing), transport (aerospace and automotive) and tourism. Lockdowns became necessary as a preventive measure to avoid the spread of the contagious and infectious "Coronavirus Disease 2019" (COVID-19). This newly identified disease is caused by a new strain of the virus being referred to as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoronaVirus 2 (SARS CoV-2; formerly called 2019-nCoV). We review the current medical and manufacturing response to COVID-19, including advances in instrumentation, sensing, use of lasers, fumigation chambers and development of novel tools such as lab-on-the-chip using combinatorial additive and subtractive manufacturing techniques and use of molecular modelling and molecular docking in drug and vaccine discovery. We also offer perspectives on future considerations on climate change, outsourced versus indigenous manufacturing, automation, and antimicrobial resistance. Overall, this paper attempts to identify key areas where manufacturing can be employed to address societal challenges such as COVID-19.

Keywords: Climate change; Manufacturing; Nanotechnology; PPE; SARS CoV-2; Sensing.

Graphical abstract

Fig. 1

Reported number of COVID-19 infected persons shown on the world map as on May 16, 2020 (Source: newsclick.in).

Fig. 2

(a) Anatomy of SARS CoV-2 (courtesy biorender.com) and (b) likely mechanism of infection [5] showing Envelope (E) Protein, Membrane (M) Protein, Spike (S) Protein, Nucleocapsid (N) Protein (blue dots) and genomic RNA shown by red chain (reprinted with permission).

Fig. 3

Data showing SARS CoV-2 is less deadly than other pathogens such as SARS CoV-1, Ebola etc. Reprinted with permission from Ref. [10].

Fig. 4

Chart comparing the stability of SARS CoV-2 on various media. Reprinted with permission from Ref. [15,16].

Fig. 5

(a) Various damage sites in the body reported to be caused by COVID-19 [21]. (b) Tissue distribution of ACE2 receptors in humans [23] (c) Possible neuro disorders due to SARS CoV-2 [22] and (d) Life cycle of SARS CoV-2 in host cells [24]. (figures reprinted with permission).

Fig. 5

(a) Various damage sites in the body reported to be caused by COVID-19 [21]. (b) Tissue distribution of ACE2 receptors in humans [23] (c) Possible neuro disorders due to SARS CoV-2 [22] and (d) Life cycle of SARS CoV-2 in host cells [24]. (figures reprinted with permission).

Fig. 6

TEM image showing the presence of spherical coronavirus particles. Reprinted with permission from Ref. [26].

Fig. 7

(a) Need for more rigorous tests [28], (b) COVID-19 Detection Test cassette demonstrating the assay procedure (c) importance of IoT sensing [32] (d) Schematic diagram of COVID-19 field-effect transistor (FET) sensor operation procedure. Graphene as a sensing material is selected, and SARS-CoV-2 spike antibody is conjugated onto the graphene sheet via 1-pyrenebutyric acid N-hydroxysuccinimide ester [31] (figures reprinted with permission).

Fig. 8

A passenger bus being disinfected by UVC in Shanghai, China. Reprinted with permission from Ref. [38].

Fig. 9

Antimicrobial mechanism of chitosan-based coating with antimicrobial agents. Reprinted with permission from Ref. [40].

Fig. 10

Mechanisms behind antimicrobial surfaces (courtesy biorender.com).

Fig. 11

The mechanism of viricidal activity of silver (Ag) Nanoparticles (NP) chitin nanofiber sheets showing strong antimicrobial activity via reactive oxygen species (ROS) and silver ions on the substrate. Reprinted with permission from Ref. [58].

Fig. 12

Nanoparticle based therapy for SARS CoV-2. Reprinted with permission from Ref. [59].

Fig. 13

Illustration of micro punch array with 40 nm diameter and inverse-pattern via stamping (left, center) of viral scale mask filter made possible by a ion implant die fabrication method [67,68] for scalable fabrication via e.g. roll to roll processing (right). Figures reprinted with permission.

Fig. 14

Mechanism of germ trap fooling the virus into attaching to the protein surface [72].

Fig. 15

Cartoon model showing the importance of wearing a face shield/mask in avoiding the probable recurrent spread of coronavirus

Fig. 16

(a) Single protomer of SARS CoV-2 with the RBD in the (a) “down” (receptor-inaccessible) conformation) and (b) “up” (receptor-accessible) configuration [87] (b) an example of molecular docking [88] (figures reprinted with permission).

Fig. 17

Airborne spread tracked by the laser experiments at Toho University, Japan.

Fig. 18

Satellite data from NASA and the European Space Agency showing a dramatic decrease in the nitrogen dioxide (NO2^{) during pandemic peak. (NO}2 ^is produced when fossil fuels are burned). Reprinted with permission from Ref. [10,99,100].

Fig. 18

Satellite data from NASA and the European Space Agency showing a dramatic decrease in the nitrogen dioxide (NO2^{) during pandemic peak. (NO}2 ^is produced when fossil fuels are burned). Reprinted with permission from Ref. [10,99,100].

Fig. 19

Biosafety needs and future guided bioresearch. Reprinted with permission from Ref. [103].

Fig. 20

A prototype demonstrator of COPARBOT (Courtesy: Dr. S. Kanagaraj at IIT Guwahati, India).

Fig. 21

A schematic showing various factors of concern leading to increasing zoonosis emergence [106].