Suprachoroidal delivery of viral and non-viral vectors for treatment of retinal and choroidal vascular diseases.

Current treatments for retinal and choroidal neovascular diseases suffer from insufficient durability, including anti-vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) agents. It is, therefore, of interest to explore alternative methods that could allow for robust improvement in visual acuity with fewer injections required. Amongst various pre-clinical and clinical studies in the literature, a promising approach is the use of suprachoroidal injection with viral and non-viral gene delivery vectors.

A 3D in vitro assay to study combined immune cell infiltration and cytotoxicity.

Immune cell-mediated killing of cancer cells in a solid tumor is prefaced by a multi-step infiltration cascade of invasion, directed migration, and cytotoxic activities. In particular, immune cells must invade and migrate through a series of different extracellular matrix (ECM) boundaries and domains before reaching and killing their target tumor cells. These infiltration events are a central challenge to the clinical success of CAR T cells against solid tumors.

Engineering self-propelled tumor-infiltrating CAR T cells using synthetic velocity receptors.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells express antigen-specific synthetic receptors, which upon binding to cancer cells, elicit T cell anti-tumor responses. CAR T cell therapy has enjoyed success in the clinic for hematological cancer indications, giving rise to decade-long remissions in some cases. However, CAR T therapy for patients with solid tumors has not seen similar success.