recognize and bind to tumor-associated antigens such as CD19 and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) before releasing cytotoxic granules and effector cytokines to destroy cancer cells. [3] CAR-T therapy has shown remarkable success against CD19 expressing B cell hematological malignancies and, thus far, five products (Kymriah from Novartis; Yescarta and Tecartus from Kite Pharma/Gilead Sciences; and Breyanzi and Abecma from Bristol-Myers Squibb) have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for clinical use. [4,5] Currently, there are at least 500 clinical trials registered on ClinicalTrials.gov database using engineered immune cells to treat various cancers including that of the brain, lungs, and skin.Despite the clinical success of CAR-T cells against B cell leukemia, CAR-T therapy still face tremendous challenges in manufacturing, safety, and affordability before it can become a viable clinical option. [6] One of the biggest technical difficulties is to transfect sensitive, primary T cells whereby biomolecules like oligonucleotides and proteins have to be delivered intracellularly and into the nuclei of cells. FDA-approved gold standard viruses and bulk electroporation suffer from low transfection efficiency while also perturbing the critical biological attributes of cells such as proliferation, metabolism, and gene expression. [7] This increases the time and costs for cell expansion, and without an efficient and cost-friendly transfection technology, the price (between USD 0.4-0.5 million per patient) for FDA-approved CAR treatments (Kymriah and Yescarta) will remain unaffordable and untimely. [8] The limitations in conventional transfection techniques have motivated the development of micro-and nanoplatforms such as microfluidics, nanoparticles, and high-aspect-ratio nanostructures to improve immune cell viability and throughput during transfection.Herein, we first provide an overview of CAR-T cell manufacturing, with emphasis on the science of transfection and limitations of traditional technology using viruses and bulk electroporation. There will also be discussion of other cell-based cancer immunotherapy using other types of promising immune cell types. Next, we describe emerging transfection platforms and companies that have been established to overcome gaps in CAR-T transfection. We then provide a list of assays constituting the polyfunctionalities of immune cells that we believe will help the field better assess the robustness and suitability of their transfection methods. Finally, we end off with existing challenges in CAR-T transfection and how overcoming these challenges can significantly enhance the clinical impact of CAR-T therapy.Chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy holds great promise for preventing and treating deadly diseases such as cancer. However, it remains challenging to transfect and engineer primary immune cells for clinical cell manufacturing. Conventional tools using viral vectors and bulk electroporation suffer from low efficiency while posing risks ...

Cells interact with their surrounding environment through a combination of static and dynamic mechanical signals that vary over stimulus types, intensity, space, and time. Compared to static mechanical signals such as stiffness, porosity, and topography, the current understanding on the effects of dynamic mechanical stimulations on cells remains limited, attributing to a lack of access to devices, the complexity of experimental set-up, and data interpretation. Yet, in the pursuit of emerging translational applications (e.g., cell manufacturing for clinical treatment), it is crucial to understand how cells respond to a variety of dynamic forces that are omnipresent in vivo so that they can be exploited to enhance manufacturing and therapeutic outcomes. With a rising appreciation of the extracellular matrix (ECM) as a key regulator of biofunctions, researchers have bioengineered a suite of ECM-mimicking hydrogels, which can be fine-tuned with spatiotemporal mechanical cues to model complex static and dynamic mechanical profiles. This review first discusses how mechanical stimuli may impact different cellular components and the various mechanobiology pathways involved. Then, how hydrogels can be designed to incorporate static and dynamic mechanical parameters to influence cell behaviors are described. The Scopus database is also used to analyze the relative strength in evidence, ranging from strong to weak, based on number of published literatures, associated citations, and treatment significance. Additionally, the impacts of static and dynamic mechanical stimulations on clinically relevant cell types including mesenchymal stem cells, fibroblasts, and immune cells, are evaluated. The aim is to draw attention to the paucity of studies on the effects of dynamic mechanical stimuli on cells, as well as to highlight the potential of using a cocktail of various types and intensities of mechanical stimulations to influence cell fates (similar to the concept of biochemical cocktail to direct cell fate). It is envisioned that this progress report will inspire more exciting translational development of mechanoresponsive hydrogels for biomedical applications.

No abstract

No abstract