(96c) Functional Mesoporous Silica for Immunoengineering and Immunotherapy

Failures of the native immune system to eradicate tumors are mostly due to the immunosuppressive environments created by the tumor. In order to generate robust and durable antitumor adaptive immune responses, it is crucial to overcome the immunosuppressive environments that affect to the immune cells. In this presentation I will discuss on the design and application of functional mesoporous silica to cancer vaccine by activating immune cells. The functional mesoporous silica includes 3D scaffold composed of injectable mesoporous microparticles, hierarchically porous scaffold, and large-pore mesoporous silica nanoparticles to activate dendritic cells and cytotoxic T cells in vivo. The functional mesoporous silica could act as delivery vehicles of cancer antigen and adjuvant, and as building blocks to form cellular microenvironment in the body for the manipulation of host dendritic cells. The appropriate design and engineering of functional nanobiomaterials could have the potential to treat cancer and inflammatory disease in the future.