Cited by 124CAR-T cell therapy researchCancer Research and TreatmentsImmunotherapy and Immune Responses

Synthetic Immunology: Hacking Immune Cells to Expand Their Therapeutic Capabilities

Open access
Roybal, Kole T., Lim, Wendell A.·2017·Annual Review of Immunology

Abstract

The ability of immune cells to survey tissues and sense pathologic insults and deviations makes them a unique platform for interfacing with the body and disease. With the rapid advancement of synthetic biology, we can now engineer and equip immune cells with new sensors and controllable therapeutic response programs to sense and treat diseases that our natural immune system cannot normally handle. Here we review the current state of engineered immune cell therapeutics and their unique capabilities compared to small molecules and biologics. We then discuss how engineered immune cells are being designed to combat cancer, focusing on how new synthetic biology tools are providing potential ways to overcome the major roadblocks for treatment. Finally, we give a long-term vision for the use of synthetic biology to engineer immune cells as a general sensor-response platform to precisely detect disease, to remodel disease microenvironments, and to treat a potentially wide range of challenging diseases.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1146/annurev-immunol-051116-052302

Cites

118 of 118 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Multiple chemical-genetic systems have been devised to enable tunable regulation of protein stability using small molecules, including FKBP12-based destabilization domains, auxin-inducible degrons and SMASh.

    “Multiple chemical–genetic systems have been devised to enable tunable regulation of protein stability using small molecules194, including FKBP12-based destabilization domains195, auxin-inducible degrons196 and small-molecule-assisted shutoff (SMASh)197.”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Roybal, K. T., & Lim, W. A.
Affiliations
  • University of California, San Francisco (US)
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)
Venue
Annual Review of Immunology
Published
2017-04-26
Volume
35
Issue
1
Pages
229-253
ISSN
  • 0732-0582 (ISSN-L)
  • 1545-3278
OpenAlex
W2609239470
Cited by
124
References
118
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 6
FWCI
1.29
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Annual Review of Immunology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute
  • National Cancer Institute (R01CA196277)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › CAR-T cell therapy research
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Biotechnology › Cancer Research and Treatments
  • Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › Immunotherapy and Immune Responses
Keywords
engineered immune cells, synthetic biology, immune cell engineering, cancer immunotherapy, tumor microenvironment remodeling, cell therapy, disease detection
MeSH terms
Allergy and Immunology, Animals, Genetic Engineering, Humans, Lymphocyte Activation, Neoplasms, Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, Recombinant Fusion Proteins, T-Lymphocytes, Immunotherapy, Adoptive, Cancer Vaccines, Synthetic Biology

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review