Smartly engineered biomaterials drive immune remodeling: A new paradigm for precise treatment of inflammatory bowel...

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a group of autoimmune disorders characterized by chronic and relapsing intestinal inflammation. Although drug therapy can alleviate clinical symptoms to some extent, it generally has limited efficacy, significant adverse effects, and high relapse rates. There is a pressing need to develop more precise and safer therapeutic strategies. In recent years, extensive studies have focused on the rational design of biomaterials by tailoring their physical and chemical properties and introduced features such as intelligent responsiveness, mucosal adhesion, and tissue penetration. These improvements enable the targeted delivery and controlled release of therapeutic agents at sites of intestinal inflammation. In addition, the dysregulation of the intestinal immune microenvironment in IBD, particularly abnormal immune cell function, provides important therapeutic targets. Biomaterials can suppress intestinal inflammatory responses by targeting or modulating key immune cell populations. Furthermore, with the rapid development of cell engineering technologies, engineered immune cells and their derivatives have gradually emerged as promising therapeutic approaches for IBD. Therefore, therapeutic strategies that integrate biomaterials with immunomodulatory approaches are increasingly recognized as a key avenue toward precision therapy for IBD. This review summarizes recent advances in the application of biomaterials for IBD treatment, with a focus on four major immune cell types-macrophages, neutrophils, dendritic cells, and T lymphocytes-highlighting the underlying immunoregulatory mechanisms and the application of engineered immune cells, thereby providing useful insights into the development of novel therapeutic strategies for IBD.