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Boosting or suppressing the innate and adaptive immune response can treat and prevent a variety of diseases, from autoimmune syndromes, to cancer, to inflammatory and infectious diseases. The immune system however is exquisitely regulated, and its unspecific modulation might lead to unintended severe secondary effects. Specific approaches, such as cell immunotherapies, might obviate these outcomes, but they are generally highly costly and often inefficient due to the processing procedures. Nanomaterials can help overcome many roadblocks in the development of immunomodulation therapies. For example, they might allow in vivo targeted modulation of immune cells and delivery of specific immunostimulating or immunosuppressive agents (or a combination of) at precise locations in the body. Bioengineering studies to generate reproducible, scalable and affordable nano-enabled immunomodulation approaches are multiplying, and have allowed the development of an innovative vaccine formulation against COVID-19, recently rolled out for human use in many countries. Other nanovaccines against infectious diseases, but also against cancer, are currently being investigated. The widespread clinical application of immunomodulatory nanomaterials and nano-enabled strategies, such as those developed for immune cell therapies and cancer immunotherapies, is however still lacking. Further efforts towards understanding the complex interactions of the immune system with man-made materials, and rational design of preclinical studies might help clinical translation.
Flexibly designed nanomaterials can trigger specific immune responses and might offer promising alternatives to traditional immunosuppressive therapies, cancer immunotherapies and vaccine formulations.
Compared to cancer nanomedicine, cancer immune nanomedicine presents unique challenges stemming from the complexity of the tumour responses to immunotherapy. This Perspective describes some of the factors contributing to this complexity and offers thoughts on how nanomedicine researchers can include them in their experimental design.
Tolerogenic dendritic cells inhibit inflammatory responses against self-antigens, offering a therapeutic strategy for autoimmune diseases. This Review describes the nanotechnology-based approaches available to target dendritic cells and induce tolerogenic properties, highlighting applications in organ transplantation, multiple sclerosis and diabetes mellitus.
This Review provides an overview of the advantages and disadvantages of nanoscale vaccines against infectious diseases, focusing in particular on the immunological responses they can elicit, depending on their physicochemical properties and functionalization, and on the challenges their production face.