Innovative Cancer Vaccine Platform for Sustained and Localized Delivery of Immunotherapy

Cancer vaccines are a form of immunotherapy that can generate antigen-specific antitumor immunity to achieve long-term cancer elimination. Conventional cancer vaccines typically require multiple administrations to generate enduring anti-tumor immune responses. Additionally, administering the therapy as a bolus can diminish vaccine efficacy by accelerating its diffusion throughout the body. To address these challenges, we developed the “NanoLymph”, a subcutaneous implantable platform for targeted cancer immune modulation. This is a transcutaneously accessible dual-reservoir system capable of sustained release of immunoadjuvants from a drug reservoir into a cell reservoir through a nanoporous membrane. The Nanolymph promotes in situ immune cell recruitment, homing and activation through an antigen-loaded collagen scaffold embedded within the cell reservoir. In this study, we used CCL21, a chemokine that recruits CD8+ T cells and dendritic cells (DCs), along with ovalbumin (OVA) to assess antigen-specific immune response against OVA-expressing B16 tumor model. Recruited DCs uptake OVA antigen and cross-present to T cells which mobilize a systemic anti-tumor response. In summary, the NanoLymph can achieve localized immunomodulation, presenting a feasible strategy for antigen-specific cancer vaccination.