Vaccines and immunotherapies have provided enormous improvements for public health, but there are fundamental disconnects between where most studies are performed—in cell culture and animal models—and the ultimate application in humans. Engineering immune tissues and organs, such as bone marrow, thymus, lymph nodes and spleen, could be instrumental in overcoming these hurdles. Fundamentally, designed immune tissues could serve as in vitro tools to more accurately study human immune function and disease, while immune tissues engineered for implantation as next-generation vaccines or immunotherapies could enable direct, on-demand control over generation and regulation of immune function. In this Review, we discuss recent interdisciplinary strategies that are merging materials science and immunology to create engineered immune tissues in vitro and in vivo. We also highlight the hurdles facing these approaches and the need for comparison to existing clinical options, relevant animal models, and other emerging technologies.

疫苗和免疫疗法为公众健康带来了巨大的改善，但大多数研究的进行地点（细胞培养和动物模型）与最终在人类中的应用之间存在根本性的脱节。改造免疫组织和器官，如骨髓、胸腺、淋巴结和脾脏，可能有助于克服这些障碍。从根本上说，设计的免疫组织可以作为体外工具来更准确地研究人类免疫功能和疾病，而设计用于植入的下一代疫苗或免疫疗法的免疫组织可以实现对免疫功能的产生和调节的直接、按需控制。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了最近的跨学科策略，这些策略将材料科学和免疫学相结合，以在体外和体内创建工程免疫组织。我们还强调了这些方法面临的障碍以及与现有临床方案、相关动物模型和其他新兴技术进行比较的必要性。