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Biomaterials can be used to enhance vaccine, immunotherapy response
The inherent immunogenic features of biomaterials — including their size, shape and chemistry — can be harnessed to improve vaccines and immunotherapies, according to a research team at the University of Maryland.
“This is a brand-new way of thinking about how, where and when to deliver immune signals and antigens so you get a much better immune response,” researcher Jonathan S. Bromberg, MD, PhD, professor of surgery and microbiology and immunology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said in a press release. “It's allowing some real paradigm shifts in thinking about vaccines for treating and preventing infectious disease, and also for potential vaccines for cancer.”
Harnessing potential
Biomaterials — “a term encompassing synthetic and natural polymers, lipids, self-assembled nanostructures, and engineered artificial cells,” according to the researchers — can be used to exert greater control over immune responses that are generated to combat infection, cancer and autoimmunity. The report, published in Trends in Immunology, focused on several classes of biomaterials, including nanoparticles and microparticles, which are formed from polymers or lipids. Biomaterials also include stable or absorbable scaffolds for implantation, and devices such as microneedle patches that can deliver vaccines — technology that was recently tested in an early-phase trial.
In terms of vaccines, biomaterials may be useful in gaining control over the loading and release kinetics of several immune cargoes, and also may offer protection from enzymatic degradation and extreme pH. Moreover, biomaterials can be linked or delivered to antibodies or receptor ligands to provide molecularly specific targeting to immune cells, a characteristic that can be harnessed to decrease systemic and area-specific toxicity, the researchers said.
Through these mechanisms, biomaterials may have the potential to deliver adjuvants that fortify and extend the efficacy of the vaccines while reducing the amount of injected foreign material.
Regarding cancer treatment, the report discussed the use of particle encapsulation that can be used to target the distribution of chemotherapeutics to reduce systemic effects and safety concerns, increase uptake and processing by antigen-presenting cells (APCs), and improve tumor-specific T-cell function. Additionally, the researchers said, liposomes can be altered to harness naturally occurring immune pathways to guide the type of response.
“Now, we have an opportunity to have the carrier manipulate the immune system based on the structure, providing an additional route to engineer the most effective immune response,” researcher Christopher Jewell, PhD, associate professor in the Fischell Department of Bioengineering at the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering, said in the release.
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.