Cell transplantation

Few therapies for spinal cord injury (SCI) have successfully reached the clinic, owing to the complex nature of the injury. This Review highlights two potential new multi-target therapeutic strategies for SCI: olfactory mucosa-derived mesenchymal stromal cells and heparan sulfate mimetics.

Natural killer (NK) cells have a primordial role in tumour immunosurveillance. Given their potent antitumour activity, therapeutic manipulation of NK cells provides an attractive strategy for cancer treatment. This Review discusses new approaches to activate NK cells, increase their proliferation in vivo and increase their capacity to recognize tumour cells.

The use of allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor T cells from donors has many potential advantages over autologous approaches, such as immediate availability, standardization and the possibility of redosing or combination. This Review analyses the different sources of T cells and technological approaches to produce optimal allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor T cells with limited potential for graft-versus-host disease and increased persistence.

Universal cells — here defined as cells that are invisible to the immune system — could potentially have many uses in transplantation medicine. This Review discusses how far we have come in creating such cells and the lessons that nature can teach us about immune evasion.