Reactive-ester derived polymer nanogels for cancer immunotherapy

During the last decade cancer immunotherapy has revolutionized tumor therapy by discovering novel routes to combat abnormal cells. This may also revolutionize the development of polymer-based cancer nanomedicines and provide alternative tools for cancer immunotherapeutics to overcome barriers and improve their pharmacokinetics. In this article, the latest developments of RAFT-polymerization derived, pentafluorophenyl reactive-ester based polymer nanogels are summarized with a special focus on applying them as drug carriers in cancer immunotherapy. Various polymer crosslinking strategies provide access to reversible drug loading and release as well as tuning particle degradation, while orthogonal functional groups on the nanogel corona enable the introduction of immune cellular targeting. The polymeric reactive ester approach is essential to increase functionality inside core and corona in a modular fashion and, thus, may allow to synthetically fine-tune the polymeric carrier even towards personalized cancer immunotherapies or other immune-related disorders.