Screening Cancer Immunotherapy: When Engineering Approaches Meet Artificial Intelligence

Xingwu Zhou; Moyuan Qu; Peyton Tebon; Xing Jiang; Canran Wang; Yumeng Xue; Jixiang Zhu; Shiming Zhang; Rahmi Oklu; Shiladitya Sengupta; Wujin Sun; Ali Khademhosseini

doi:10.1002/advs.202001447

Screening Cancer Immunotherapy: When Engineering Approaches Meet Artificial Intelligence

Adv Sci (Weinh). 2020 Aug 13;7(19):2001447. doi: 10.1002/advs.202001447. eCollection 2020 Oct.

Authors

Xingwu Zhou^{1

2

3}, Moyuan Qu^{1

2

4}, Peyton Tebon^{1

2}, Xing Jiang^{1

2

5}, Canran Wang^{1

2}, Yumeng Xue^{1

2}, Jixiang Zhu^{1

2

6}, Shiming Zhang^{1

2}, Rahmi Oklu⁷, Shiladitya Sengupta⁸, Wujin Sun^{1

2}, Ali Khademhosseini^{1

2

3

9

10

11}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Bioengineering University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles CA 90095 USA.
² Center for Minimally Invasive Therapeutics California NanoSystems Institute University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles CA 90095 USA.
³ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Sciences University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles CA 90095 USA.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases National Clinical Research Center for Oral Diseases West China Hospital of Stomatology Sichuan University Chengdu 610041 China.
⁵ School of Nursing Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine Nanjing 210023 China.
⁶ Department of Biomedical Engineering School of Basic Medical Sciences Guangzhou Medical University Guangzhou 511436 China.
⁷ Minimally Invasive Therapeutics Laboratory Division of Vascular and Interventional Radiology Mayo Clinic Phoenix AZ 85054 USA.
⁸ Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology Harvard Medical School Boston MA 02115 USA.
⁹ Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles CA 90095 USA.
¹⁰ Department of Radiology David Geffen School of Medicine University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles CA 90095 USA.
¹¹ Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation Los Angeles CA 90064 USA.

Abstract

Immunotherapy is a class of promising anticancer treatments that has recently gained attention due to surging numbers of FDA approvals and extensive preclinical studies demonstrating efficacy. Nevertheless, further clinical implementation has been limited by high variability in patient response to different immunotherapeutic agents. These treatments currently do not have reliable predictors of efficacy and may lead to side effects. The future development of additional immunotherapy options and the prediction of patient-specific response to treatment require advanced screening platforms associated with accurate and rapid data interpretation. Advanced engineering approaches ranging from sequencing and gene editing, to tumor organoids engineering, bioprinted tissues, and organs-on-a-chip systems facilitate the screening of cancer immunotherapies by recreating the intrinsic and extrinsic features of a tumor and its microenvironment. High-throughput platform development and progress in artificial intelligence can also improve the efficiency and accuracy of screening methods. Here, these engineering approaches in screening cancer immunotherapies are highlighted, and a discussion of the future perspectives and challenges associated with these emerging fields to further advance the clinical use of state-of-the-art cancer immunotherapies are provided.

Keywords: artificial intelligence; cancer immunotherapy; drug screening; high‐throughput screening; tissue engineering.

Publication types

Review