Biomaterials and devices for immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is a relatively newer and promising strategy to combat cancer compared with traditional chemotherapy and radiotherapy strategies. The immune responses are often suppressed in the tumor microenvironment and immunotherapy can be applied to activate or enhance the host immune system response to attack and destroy tumor cells. However, immunotherapy applications by themselves are often associated with low response rates; thus, combination therapies are needed to result in effective anticancer treatments. In this chapter, we discuss the nanoscale biomaterial-based strategies, namely, nanoparticles, to deliver combined immunotherapy and chemotherapy, which enable synergistic effect on anticancer therapy. Moreover, we focus the attention on microrobots/nanorobots (MNRs) that have been employed for drug delivery as potential innovative carriers for immunotherapy and chemotherapy. MNRs are promising solutions for drug delivery applications as they can more precisely access parts of the body that are hard to reach without affecting healthy tissues.