The Second Generation of Cryomicroneedles for Transdermal Cell Delivery in Cancer Immunotherapy

Cell therapy holds great promises for previously untreatable diseases by restoring or altering certain sets of cells or by using cells to carry a therapy through the body. However, the delivery of these cells through either conventional infusion or local transplantation suffers from many challenges including the complicated preparation procedures. There is a need to develop the alternative administration strategy for therapeutic cells, that is convenient and safe and have a relatively low cost. We have recently invented the cryomicroneedle (cryoMN) platform technology that allows the package of cells into cryoMNs in advance and subsequent direct usage in clinics. It circumvents complex and redundant procedures during each cell administration. As a proof-of-concept, we have explored cell-based cancer immunotherapy through the intradermal delivery of ovalbum-inpulsed dendritic cells (DCs). However, the current cryoMN devices require the cold-chain transportation and storage. In addition, they can only be pre-manufactured (requiring the template molding of cell-containing cryogenic media) and don’t permit the loading of the autologous cells by the researchers and clinicians at their willsin situ. This proposal is to develop the second generation of cryoMNs that address these limitations. Specifically, when successfully developed, this new generation of cryoMNs can be stored and transported in room temperature, and permit the loading of cellsin situ. Our idea is to develop a porous MN scaffold that can be loaded with cells through soaking and then be frozen to cryoMNs. In this case, the porous scaffold can be stored and transported in room temperature. Before usage, the clinicians or researchers can load cells by dipping the MN scaffold in the cell suspension. After the freezing process, the cryoMNs are ready for deployment. In a melanoma mouse model, we will explore the delivery of DCs using the new cryoMNs for cancer immunotherapy.