Editorial—Special Issue on Molecular Communications for Diagnostics and Therapeutic Development of Infectious Diseases

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic in the last year has brought along numerous challenges on all fronts for humanity. Besides the high number of fatalities, economic and societal impact, the virus has also raised a question on the current approaches and methodologies for combatting pandemics. An important factor in this global fight against the pandemic, is the fact that key experts within the fields of biotechnology, virology and immunology have to return to the drawing board to develop new approaches to treat the virus. This has triggered a multi and inter-disciplinary research drive to bring in new concepts, techniques and methodologies that can be used to understand the virus in order to develop novel treatment techniques. The field of molecular communications, which is just over a decade old, is one area of research in the field of communications and networking that can contribute towards understanding of virus and their infection process. This is the aim of this special issue, where we have collected a number of publications from key researchers in the field of molecular communications that can contribute towards understanding the viral properties and behavior, which can be used to support the current as well as future pandemics.