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Camille M. Le Gall, Jorieke Weiden, Loek J. Eggermont and Carl G. Figdor provide an overview of immunotherapeutics for cancer treatment that harness dendritic cells, their challenges in clinical use, and approaches employed to enhance their recruitment and activation to promote effective anti-tumour immunity.
Darrell Irvine provides an overview of the recent advances in materials science that have enabled the use of innovative natural and synthetic compounds in vaccine development capable of regulating the potency and safety of new vaccines progressing towards the clinic.
Tumour heterogeneity and off-target toxicity are current challenges of cancer immunotherapy. Karine Dzhandzhugazyan, Per Guldberg and Alexei Kirkin discuss how epigenetic induction of tumour antigens in antigen-presenting cells may form the basis for multi-target therapies.
Kiyoshi Miyata and X.-Y. Zhu analyse the ferroelectric-like dielectric response of lead halide perovskites in the terahertz region and discuss the potential role of polar nanodomains in accounting for the defect tolerance and low recombination rates of these materials.
Charge carriers in metal halide perovskites seem to be only marginally affected by defect-related trap states. Filippo De Angelis and Annamaria Petrozza suggest that the key to this behaviour lies in the redox chemistry of halide defects.
Claudine Katan, Aditya D. Mohite and Jacky Even discuss the possible impact of various entropy contributions (stochastic structural fluctuations, anharmonicity and lattice softness) on the optoelectronic properties of halide perovskite materials and devices.
Heavy atoms and crystal or inversion symmetry breaking may promote Rashba effects in halide perovskites. Sam Stranks and Paulina Plochocka propose experiments to assess the existence of these effects and their implications on the photophysics of perovskites.
Paulo J. M. Monteiro, Sabbie A. Miller and Arpad Horvath provide an overview of the challenges and accomplishments in reducing the environmental burden of concrete production.
Xiuyan Li and K. Lu discuss a strategy, alternative to alloying, to tailor the mechanical properties of metals. By engineering defects, metals with bespoke performance might be obtained while reducing the materials' compositional complexity.
Xun Shi and Lidong Chen summarize recent progress in the field of thermoelectric materials in China, and discuss steps towards the realization of commercially viable devices.
The China Spallation Neutron Source is expected to produce its first beam in 2017. Hesheng Chen and Xun-Li Wang provide an overview of this user facility and what it means for science in China and elsewhere.
Graphene is extensively researched in China. Xiaoyue Xiao, Yichun Li and Zhaoping Liu illustrate how the China Innovation Alliance of the Graphene Industry aims to harness this for commercial opportunities.
Computational materials science has grown in China in recent times. Hai-Qing Lin gives an overview of China's efforts towards a Materials Genome Initiative and the challenges faced.