title: Biomaterials and emerging anticancer therapeutics: engineering the microenvironment.
abstract: The microenvironment is increasingly recognized to have key roles in cancer, and biomaterials provide a means to engineer microenvironments both in vitro and in vivo to study and manipulate cancer. In vitro cancer models using 3D matrices recapitulate key elements of the tumour microenvironment and have revealed new aspects of cancer biology. Cancer vaccines based on some of the same biomaterials have, in parallel, allowed for the engineering of durable prophylactic and therapeutic anticancer activity in preclinical studies, and some of these vaccines have moved to clinical trials. The impact of biomaterials engineering on cancer treatment is expected to further increase in importance in the years to come.
authors.affiliation: Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Luo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.affiliation: Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Mooney
mesh_terms: D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D023822:Tissue Engineering; D059016:Tumor Microenvironment
chemical_list: D001672:Biocompatible Materials