T lymphocyte engineering with cytokine nanogels for enhanced cancer immunotherapy

Background Adoptive cell transfer (ACT) with autologous tumorreactive T cells is a promising strategy in cancer immunotherapy, but treatment of solid tumors is limited by the rapid decline in function of the transplanted T cells. In order to maintain high numbers of viable antigen-specific cytotoxic T cells in tumors, co-administration of supporting immunostimulant agents together with transferred cells is often necessary in clinical practice. However, the high systemic doses of such agents needed to enhance T cell functionality can also result in serious side effects.