Associate Prof. Wang Yuguang from the Peking University School of Stomatology (PKUSS) and his research team published their latest research results online in Nano Today,announcing the team's newly-developed carrier-free nano-vaccine with high cellular uptake rate and high adjustable ratio. The article is entitled “Self-assembled nanospheres mediate phototherapy and delivery of CpG oligodeoxynucleotides to enhance cancer immunotherapy of breast cancer and melanoma”

PD-1/PD-L1 pathway is one of the main pathways involved in tumor cell immune escape, and immune checkpoint blocking therapy targeting this pathway has become a popular new cancer treatment strategy at present. However, the insufficient T-cell infiltration rate in tumor tissue often leads to a low response rate of ICB therapy within the clinic.

To overcome this challenge, Wang Yuguang and his research team from PKU-SS, in collaboration with Shi Lei’s research team from Tianjin Medical University jointly developed a carrier-free nano-vaccine IDP-NS, which can be used to promote phototherapy and immunotherapy. The newly-developed nano-vaccine can be used as a phototherapy/immunotherapy drug and can be combined with immune checkpoint blocking therapy to effectively activate the immune system, which resulted in effective prevention of postoperative tumor recurrence and metastasis, as well as inhibited the growth of secondary tumors.