The most direct way to suppress viruses and stop the spreading of viral infection is to inactivate them before the attachment to the host cells, by binding to the acceptor proteins.88 One of the most conserved targets of viral attachment ligands is the heparan sulfate proteoglycan (HSPG), previously mentioned. HSPGs are expressed on the surface of almost all eukaryotic cell types, and many viruses like HIV-1, HSV, human papilloma virus (HPV) exploit HSPGs as the target of their viral attachment ligands. Bearing in mind this behavior, different studies have used HSPG-mimicking materials to target this type of virus–cell interaction and to achieve broad spectrum efficacy. For example, in one key study, AuNPs were functionalized with mercaptoethanesulfonate (MES) based on its mimicry of HS (Au-MES NPs). Au-MES NPs were shown to interfere with viral attachment, viral entry, and cell-to-cell spreading.89 The importance of the polyvalent interactions with the virus makes these NPs a good candidate for antiviral therapy. However, Au-MES NPs presented virustatic activity, meaning that upon dilution of the NPs, the virus recovers its infectivity due to the reversibility of the cell-virion interaction. This problem was solved by Stellacci and colleagues who developed NPs coated with mercapto-1-undecanesulfonate (MUS) ligands (Au-MUS NPs). The long aliphatic and flexible linkers provide stronger associations with the viral particles compared to Au-MES NPs, leading to local distortions and eventually inducing a global deformation and breaking of the capsid that inactivates its contagion irreversibly (Figure 8).90 These Au-MUS NPs were tested against different HSPG-dependent viruses, showing a high viricidal activity over HSV, HPV, and RSV (Figure 9A). Furthermore, the activity of the Au-MUS NPs was studied in vivo using mice infected with RSV, indicating that the material can prevent pulmonary dissemination of the infection and showing potential use as medically relevant virucidal drugs to fight viral infections. More recently, the concept was further extended to cyclodextrins modified with mercapto-1-undecanesulfonate, proposing this system as a broad spectrum virucidal macromolecule.91 Besides Au-NPs, a similar mechanism of disruption was studied with other materials like graphene or GO. In a study, in which the toxicity of graphene was evaluated theoretically, it was also shown that graphene nanosheets can interrupt the hydrophobic protein–protein interaction, which is essential to biological functions.92 This feature was attributed to the hydrophobic nature of graphene. Thus, it seems energetically favorable for graphene to slide between the interface of two proteins in contact, due to hydrophobic interactions. In another study inspired by this behavior, the authors performed molecular dynamics simulations of graphene nanosheets in the proximity of the surface of the Ebola viral matrix protein VP40 showing that the nanosheets can break the hydrophobic interactions in VP40, a key protein for the replication and stability of Ebola virus (Figure 8).93 These findings suggest that graphene nanosheets might have potential antiviral activity against Ebola; however, there is a lack of experimental evidence that corroborates this mechanism of disruption. On the other hand, GO was tested experimentally against Pseudorabies virus and Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), showing significant decrease in the infectivity.94 It was found that the negatively charged surface of GO is important for the adsorption of the virus, whose surface is positively charged, and that GO could directly interact with the viral particles and destroy their structures due to the sharp edges of the material (Figures 8 and 9B).