International journal of nanomedicine2026ReviewNon-viral Gene DeliveryDrug Delivery
Tabibzadeh S, Meng F, Asghariazar V, Safarzadeh E, Esmaeili A, Ten Hagen Tlm, Et Al.
Cancer vaccines have emerged as a promising immunotherapeutic strategy for inducing durable and tumour-specific immune responses; however, their clinical efficacy remains limited by poor antigen immunogenicity, inefficient delivery, tumor heterogeneity, and the highly immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME).
Read the article →Acta pharmaceutica Sinica. B2026ResearchNon-viral Gene DeliveryDrug Delivery
Li S, Zhang Y, Han Y, Zhao M, Wang Y, Lu J, Et Al.
Neutrophils exhibit significant plasticity within the tumor microenvironment (TME), such as promoting immune suppression, tumor growth, and metastasis. Although various nano drug delivery systems targeting neutrophils have been developed based on their tumor chemotaxis, few studies have focused on designing…
Read the article →European journal of haematology2026ReviewNon-viral Gene DeliveryDrug Delivery
Morabito F, Martino Ea, Bruzzese A, Amodio N, Caserta S, Lucia E, Et Al.
mRNA-based vaccines are emerging as a promising platform for cancer immunotherapy, including in hematologic malignancies. Current vaccine development has largely focused on antigen selection, mRNA engineering, lipid nanoparticle (LNP) formulation, and combination with established immunotherapies. However, increasing…
Read the article →Journal of nanobiotechnology2026ReviewDrug Delivery
Sun M, Xiao L, Yu Y
Neoantigen vaccines have become an important direction in cancer immunotherapy because mutation-derived tumor antigens can induce highly specific T-cell responses while minimizing immune tolerance associated with tumor-associated antigens. However, their therapeutic performance remains limited by several…
Read the article →International journal of molecular sciences2026ReviewNon-viral Gene DeliveryDrug Delivery
Rachamala Hk, Angom Rs, Marepally S
In recent years, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) have shown great promise as highly flexible delivery systems for cancer vaccines, which enable effective cargo delivery and allow for controlling their distribution, cell-targeting ability and immunogenicity. Innovations in ionizable lipid chemistry, biodegradable…
Read the article →Frontiers in oncology2026ReviewNon-viral Gene DeliveryDrug Delivery
Wu S, Liao H, Zhang W
Therapeutic mRNA vaccines are a clinically validated cancer immunotherapy platform using in vitro transcribed mRNA encoding tumor antigens to induce durable anti-tumor immunity. Advances in mRNA engineering, lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery, and immunomodulatory combinations have propelled this approach from…
Read the article →Frontiers in pharmacology2026ReviewNon-viral Gene DeliveryDrug Delivery
Rachamala Hk, Atla S, Angom Rs
Cancer immunotherapy is a transformative technology allowing for the elimination of malignant cells through immune system stimulation; however, the large-scale clinical application of adoptive cellular therapy technologies is limited due to difficulties in ex vivo immune cell engineering, high costs, and complicated…
Read the article →Biomaterials Science2022ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Sydney R. Shannon, Elena Ben-Akiva, Jordan J. Green
Gene therapies are transforming treatment for many diseases, but clinical efficacy and safety depend on both the delivery material and the cargo. Non-viral delivery to immune cells remains especially challenging, and no clinical translation breakthrough has yet been achieved for non-viral gene editing. This…
Read the article →Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B2022ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Yingping Zeng, Sufen Li, Shufen Zhang, Li Wang, Hong Yuan, Fuqiang Hu
Cancer immunotherapy is limited by tumour heterogeneity, immune cell disability, immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment (TME), and systemic immune toxicity. Cell membrane-coated nanoparticles (CMCNs) offer a biomimetic delivery strategy that inherits source-cell functions—immune evasion, tumour targeting, and…
Read the article →Science Advances2022ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Ann E. Metzloff, Margaret M. Billingsley, Michael J. Mitchell
mRNA vaccines have entered global use, but delivering mRNA to T cells in vivo remains challenging because T cells are non-phagocytic, reside largely in lymphoid tissues, and intravenously administered lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) tend to accumulate in the liver. There is a need for precise, scalable strategies to…
Read the article →Biomaterials 281 (2022ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Azadeh Kheirolomoom, Aris J. Kare, Elizabeth S. Ingham, Ramasamy Paulmurugan, Elise R. Robinson, Mo Baikoghli, Mohammed Inayathullah, Jai W. Seo, James Wang, Brett Z. Fite, Bo Wu, Spencer K. Tumble, Marina N. Raie, R. Holland Cheng, Lisa Nichols, Alexander D. Borowsky, Katherine W. Ferrara
Ex vivo T-cell engineering is effective but complex, costly, and difficult to scale. A method to transfect T cells directly in situ could simplify T-cell immunotherapy, but T-cell targeting may also trigger activation, depletion, cytokine release, and phenotypic changes that must be understood. In vitro: 80% of…
Read the article →Molecules2022ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Wang H-L, Wang Z-G, Liu S-L
mRNA is a promising cancer immunotherapy platform for vaccines, cytokines, costimulatory receptors, and therapeutic antibodies, but it is unstable, immunogenic, and poorly delivered in vivo. Safer and more efficient delivery systems are needed to improve mRNA stability, cellular uptake, endosomal escape, and…
Read the article →Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation.2022ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Karmacharya P, Patil Br, Kim Jo
mRNA is an attractive platform for cancer immunotherapy, but its instability, susceptibility to RNase degradation, and inefficient endosomal escape limit therapeutic applications. Lipid-based nanocarriers are non-viral vectors that can protect mRNA, improve transfection, and deliver it to intracellular compartments…
Read the article →2022ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Le Tmd, Yoon A-R, Thambi T, Yun C-O
Cancer immunotherapy — especially immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), CAR-T cells, and oncolytic viruses (OVs) — has shown major clinical success but still faces low response rates, severe immune-related side effects, complex tumour microenvironment barriers, instability/short half-life of therapeutics, and high…
Read the article →EBioMedicine* (Elsevier)2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Ella S. Atsavapranee, Margaret M. Billingsley, Michael J. Mitchell
Adoptive T cell therapy has been revolutionized by genetic engineering, but viral transduction—the standard delivery method—has limitations including small cargo capacity, high immunogenicity, high manufacturing cost, and risks of genotoxicity/insertional mutagenesis. There is a need for improved non-viral delivery…
Read the article →Cancer Gene Therapy* (Springer Nature America, Inc.)2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Rakan El-Mayta, Zijing Zhang, Alex G. Hamilton, Michael J. Mitchell
CAR T cell therapies have achieved clinical success but face limitations including restriction to autologous cell sources (to avoid HLA mismatch and GvHD), cumbersome manufacturing, high costs, and poor efficacy in solid tumours. NK cells have emerged as promising alternatives because they can kill cancer cells…
Read the article →Exploration of Medicine2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Sureshbabu Ram Kumar Pandian, Clayton Fernando Rencllin, Krishnan Sundar
Conventional cancer immunotherapies (checkpoint inhibitors, CAR T cells) are effective but expensive, cause adverse side effects, and face challenges in solid tumours. Nanomaterials offer advantages in delivery, diagnostics, and immune modulation, but a comprehensive understanding of how different nanomaterial types…
Read the article →Leukemia2021ResearchDrug Delivery
Kinan Alhallak, Jennifer Sun, Katherine Wasden, Nicole Guenthner, Julie O'neal, Barbara Muz, Justin King, Daniel Kohnen, Ravi Vij, Samuel Achilefu, John F. Dipersio, Abdel Kareem Azab
T-cell-based immunotherapies such as CAR-T cells and bispecific T-cell engagers (BiTEs) have shown promise but have significant limitations: (1) poor pharmacokinetics requiring continuous infusion (BiTE half-life ~2 h), and (2) single-antigen targeting leading to antigen-loss tumour escape and relapse. A modular…
Read the article →Drug Delivery and Translational Research2021ResearchDrug Delivery
Yuan Rui, Jordan J. Green
Glioblastoma (GBM) is one of the deadliest primary adult tumours with a median survival of only 14.6 months post-diagnosis, a statistic that has changed little in two decades. While cancer immunotherapy has shown remarkable progress in other solid tumours, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and the immune-privileged…
Read the article →Nature Communications2021ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Julia Koerner, Dennis Horvath, Valerie L. Herrmann, Anna Mackeracher, Bruno Gander, Hideo Yagita, Jacques Rohayem, Marcus Groettrup
Cancer immunotherapy needs potent, pharmaceutically defined, GMP-compatible adjuvants for clinical translation. Poly(I:C) is a widely used TLR3 agonist but has ill-defined structure, heterogeneity, pyrogen contamination, and toxicity concerns. Riboxxim is a well-defined 100-bp double-stranded RNA with a…
Read the article →Nature Reviews Drug Discovery2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Chaudhary N, Weissman D, Whitehead Ka.
mRNA vaccines have progressed from a scepticism-inducing idea to clinical reality, with COVID-19 catalysing the fastest vaccine development in history. Remaining needs include optimising mRNA design, intracellular delivery, and applications beyond SARS-CoV-2 prophylaxis. This review describes mRNA vaccine…
Read the article →Nature Nanotechnology2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Gong N, Sheppard Nc, Billingsley Mm, June Ch, Mitchell Mj.
T-cell-based immunotherapies have shown clinical success in B-cell malignancies, but broad implementation is limited by insufficient T-cell expansion, poor trafficking into solid tumours, T-cell exhaustion in hostile tumour microenvironments, and loss of target antigen expression. Nanomaterials may uniquely overcome…
Read the article →2021ReviewDrug Delivery
Cancer immunotherapy has shown efficacy but is limited by serious adverse effects, nonspecific inflammation, and challenges in spatiotemporal control of immune responses. Nanomedicine and functionalised nanosystems offer programmable pharmacokinetics, co-delivery of immunomodulators, and targeted delivery…
Read the article →2021ReviewDrug Delivery
Venkatas J, Singh M.
Cervical cancer is immunologically relevant because retained high-risk HPV antigens can be recognised as foreign, making immunotherapy attractive. However, conventional immunotherapy is limited by variable efficacy, immune evasion, cytokine toxicity, and poor targeting. Nanomedicine may improve delivery, targeting…
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