Preliminary report on therapeutic potential of coal-derived carbon quantum dots against SARS-CoV-2 virus

Due to the pandemic of COVID-19 and subsequent emerging of new mutant strains, there has been a worldwide hunt for therapeutic and protective agents for its inhibition. In this short communication, for the first time, we report the coal-derived carbon quantum dot (CQD) for the possible therapeutic application against SARS-CoV-2. The synthesized C1-CQD is observed to be safe towards the normal cell line at highest dose, while effectively inhibiting growth of SARS-CoV2 (>95%) with IC₅₀ value of 5.469 μg/mL. Moreover, C1-CQD showed activity against SARS-CoV-2 infection which is comparable to known inhibitory antiviral drug i.e., Remdesivir. These novel findings indicate that coal-based CQDs have highly potent anti-viral activity and could be investigated further for developing cheap and safer alternative therapeutic strategies for inhibition of SARS-CoV-2.