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Physical barrier gives T cells a time-out, boosts their cancer-killing power | Scientists have created a reversible "wall" to separate immune cells and cancer cells


Scientists have developed a hydrogel “rest stop” that shields cancer-fighting T cells, delaying their exhaustion and boosting their killing power. This game-changing strategy could supercharge immunotherapy by giving T cells time to regroup and hit harder.

“What if we could harness the concept of physical blocking to modulate the immune microenvironment?” asked Liang Xing-Jie, PhD, the study’s co-corresponding author and a professor at CAS’s National Center for Nanoscience and Technology. “We call this strategy ‘immunological rhythm control’,” said the study’s other corresponding author, Gong Ningqiang, PhD, a principal investigator at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). Tpex cells are now seen as a key target for improving immunotherapy because they’ve been shown to respond well to treatment, and they can help by “rebooting” the immune system against cancer, even after it has started to fail.

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