In Situ Vaccination by Nanomedicine Approach for Cancer Immunotherapy

Despite the successes of vaccination in many diseases over the past decades, safe and effective antitumor vaccines are still deficient. In situ tumor vaccination based on nanotechnology enables the possibility of antitumor vaccine therapy, which uses certain immunostimulants to eliminate tumor cells, release tumor-associated antigens, and activate antigen-presenting cells to induce antitumor T-cell responses that will result in systemic antitumor immunity. Unparalleled advances in nanotechnology now allow highly tunable physicochemical properties of nanovaccines, such as drug stability and targeting, size, shape, surface potential, circulation time, and so on. Enhanced cooperation between immunologist and materialist are expected to propose the next generation precise vaccines. This process not only provides valuable solutions for precise and effective treatment with personalized cancer immune responses but also brings options for the therapy of cancer with great clinical translation potentials. This review is devoted to provide an overview of the current innovative nanomedicines as in situ vaccination, bringing attention to the cutting-edge nanotechnologies for immunotherapy and providing ideas for further design and potential clinical translation for immunotherapy.