Nanotechnological approaches for management of NeuroAIDS

It is a well-known fact that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a neurotropic virus that enters the central nervous system (CNS) early in the course of infection. Despite the advancement brought about in therapy by the use of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), controlling HIV infections still remains a major challenging task. The primary challenge of the treatment is the poor penetrability of most antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) making it difficult to eradicate the viral brain reservoirs. Thus, there is an urgent demand for the development of a target-specific, efficacious drug-delivery approach to curb the AIDS menace. In this context, nanoformulations majorly comprising of polymeric, inorganic, and lipidic origin materials of constructs and recently explored, cellular domain confined nanoformulations are emerging as the promissory approach. This chapter will highlight the barriers to the delivery and advancements in nanomedicine to design and develop size-specific therapeutic cargo for targeting HIV brain reservoirs. This chapter would provide insight about the nano-enabled multidisciplinary research to formulate efficient nanomedicine for the management of neuroAIDS.