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Biomaterial-assisted targeted modulation of immune cells in cancer treatment

Nature Materials volume 17, pages 761–772 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

The past decade has witnessed the accelerating development of immunotherapies for cancer treatment. Immune checkpoint blockade therapies and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapies have demonstrated clinical efficacy against a variety of cancers. However, issues including life-threatening off-target side effects, long processing times, limited patient responses and high cost still limit the clinical utility of cancer immunotherapies. Biomaterial carriers of these therapies, though, enable one to troubleshoot the delivery issues, amplify immunomodulatory effects, integrate the synergistic effect of different molecules and, more importantly, home and manipulate immune cells in vivo. In this Review, we will analyse thus-far developed immunomaterials for targeted modulation of dendritic cells, T cells, tumour-associated macrophages, myeloid-derived suppressor cells, B cells and natural killer cells, and summarize the promises and challenges of cell-targeted immunomodulation for cancer treatment.

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Fig. 1: Overview of targets of cancer immunotherapies.
Fig. 2: Nanomaterial vaccines for modulation of DCs.
Fig. 3: Biomaterial scaffold-based cancer vaccines.
Fig. 4: Materials for ex vivo expansion of T cells.
Fig. 5: Materials for checkpoint blockade therapies.
Fig. 6: Materials for modulation of tumour-associated macrophages (TAMs).

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge funding from the National Institutes of Health (1 R01 EB023287, 1 U01 CA214369, 1 R01 CA223255). H.W. gratefully acknowledges funding support from the Wyss Technology Development Fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Hua Wang & David J. Mooney

  2. Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Hua Wang & David J. Mooney

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  1. Hua Wang
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  2. David J. Mooney
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Correspondence to David J. Mooney.

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Wang, H., Mooney, D.J. Biomaterial-assisted targeted modulation of immune cells in cancer treatment. Nature Mater 17, 761–772 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0147-9

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