The DOI matches its Crossref record; 118 of the 118 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Synthetic Immunology: Hacking Immune Cells to Expand Their Therapeutic Capabilities
Open accessAbstract
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.
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“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.”
From Cancer therapies based on targeted protein degradation — lessons learned with lenalidomide (2021) · cites this paper as [194]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Roybal, K. T., & Lim, W. A.
- Affiliations
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)
- Venue
- Annual Review of Immunology
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2017-04-26
- Volume
- 35
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 229-253
- ISSN
- 0732-0582 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-3278
- PMC
- PMC5555230
- 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
- bronze
- doi.org
- 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 › Bacterial Cancer Therapy
- 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
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