Nanobiotechnology-Enabled Smart Delivery Platforms for Targeted Cancer Immunotherapy: Recent Advances, Challenges, and Future Perspectives

Abstract

Immunotherapy of cancer has transformed oncology but still has limitations of low efficiency of delivery, off-target toxicity as well as resistance to therapy by the tumor microenvironment. Delivery systems that are conventional do not usually result in targeted, sustained, and immune-responsive release of therapeutics. The review underlines current developments in nanobiotechnology-enabled intelligent delivery systems such as lipid, polymeric, metallic, exosome-based, and DNA-origami systems, which can be used to improve the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy. The discussion summarizes the delivery mechanisms and immunological outcomes based on recent studies on the subject, with preclinical and clinical studies. There is evidence that demonstrates that smart nanocarriers enhance biodistribution, tumor targeting, immune checkpoint modulation, and reduce systemic toxicity. Taken together, these findings indicate that smart platforms based on nanobiotechnology have transformative potential in the next-generation precision immunotherapy, but their clinical implementation is limited.