Engineered biomaterials for cancer immunotherapy

Although cancer immunotherapy is showing tremendous promise and has progressed to the clinic, it has only achieved sporadic efficacy, with only a fraction of patients benefitting from the therapy and with undesirable side effects due to poor selectivity and high doses. Localized delivery of immunomodulators to activate anticancer immunity in situ avoids overactivation of the systemic immune system and reduces side effects. Engineered biomaterials—implantable, injectable, or transdermal—fabricated into drug delivery devices are critical components for the development of localized cancer immunotherapies. In this review, we briefly summarize progress in the application of engineered biomaterials to the localized delivery of cancer immunotherapy.