Smart nanoparticle-based platforms for regulating tumor microenvironment and cancer immunotherapy

As one of the leading causes of death, humans have spent decades exploring how to cure or treat cancer. Besides traditional chemotherapy and radiotherapy, cancer immunotherapy is becoming a practical therapeutic approach by boosting the host immune system to fight cancer. With a deep exploration of tumors, the roles of the tumor microenvironment (TME) have been gradually clarified in cancer immunotherapy. Especially, TME can be either hot or cold according to the infiltration of immune cells, such as dendritic cells, macrophages, and T cells. Furthermore, hot TME is associated with a promising prognosis compared to cold TME. Therefore, regulating the TME, especially converting the cold TME to the hot TME, becomes a promising approach for cancer immunotherapy.

In this thesis, several smart nanoparticle-based platforms, such as hybrid lipid-based cancer vaccines and TME-responsive nanoparticles were prepared with narrow size distribution and a hydrodynamic diameter size (