Nanoparticle-Based Pulmonary Immune Engineering

Respiratory conditions represent a significant global healthcare burden impacting hundreds of millions worldwide and necessitating new treatment paradigms. Pulmonary immune engineering using synthetic nanoparticle (NP) platforms can reprogram immune responses for therapeutically beneficial or protective responses directly within the lung tissue. However, effectively localizing these game-changing approaches to the lung remains a significant challenge due to the lung's natural defense. We highlight the target pulmonary immune cells and address advances to localize NPs to the lung via both aerosol and vascular delivery. For each administration route, we discuss physiochemical design rules and recent immune-modulatory successes of synthetic, extracellular vesicle, and cell-mediated NP delivery. We aim to provide readers with an updated summary of this emerging field and offer a roadmap for future research aimed at enhancing the efficacy of pulmonary immunotherapies.