Yale biomedical engineers produced a 45-fold enhancement of T cell activation and expansion–an immune response important in fighting cancer and infectious diseases—using artificial cell-like particles.

The new method is the first “off-the-shelf” antigen-presenting artificial cell that can be tuned to target a specific disease or infection. The outer surface of each particle is covered in universal adaptor molecules that serve as attachment points for antigens.

In previous procedures, a patient’s immune cells were harvested, exposed to cells that stimulated T-cells, and then infused back into the patient to attack the disease. This requires custom isolation of individual patients’ cells with the risk of adverse reaction to foreign cells.

Yale University News Release