Engineering advanced dynamic biomaterials to optimize adoptive T-cell immunotherapy

Adoptive T-cell therapy (ACT) is a promising therapeutic approach based on the concept of potent T-cell mediated immunity against the tumor. The outcome of antigen-specific T-cells responses relies on the interaction between T-cells and antigen-presenting cells, which provides signals for generating different T-cell phenotypes with different roles in tumor removal. However, such interaction is often not optimal in vivo and results in low therapeutic efficacy. To reach the full potential of the T-cell response, current research put effort into developing dynamic biomaterials as artificial antigen-presenting cells to study and regulate the T-cell activity for controlling T-cell fate. In this perspective, we provide (1) an overview of ACT and general T-cells behaviors, (2) explore the insight on how biomaterials can be used for studying and regulating T-cell behaviors, (3) and discuss conceptual gaps in knowledge for biomaterials-based immunotherapy. © 2021