Viral chemistry: the chemical functionalization of viral architectures to create new technology.

The modification of viruses using chemical conjugation techniques has brought the distant worlds of virology right into the center of nanotechnology. Viruses are naturally resilient biomolecules and this makes them exceptional templates for the creation of higher order polymers and as scaffolds for biological imaging and targeted drug delivery. In this review, we highlight progress in utilizing chemical strategies to interface viruses with synthetic polymers, to create bright bionanoparticles using synthetic fluorescent dyes, and how orthogonal chemical transformations allow for targeted drug delivery. WIREs Nanomed Nanobiotechnol 2016, 8:512-534. doi: 10.1002/wnan.1379 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.