Boosting Immunity: Enhancing Vaccine Effectiveness With Lymph Node Expansion

A new study reveals that enhanced lymph node expansion from biomaterial vaccines could boost tumor vaccine efficacy, potentially revolutionizing future vaccine developments.

The human body has approximately 600 lymph nodes (LNs). These small, bean-shaped organs house various types of blood cells and filter lymph fluid. Vaccines can cause the LNs near an injection site to temporarily expand, a phenomenon that is thought to reflect an ongoing vaccine immune response. Although researchers have studied the early expansion of LNs following vaccination, they have not investigated whether prolonged LN expansion could affect vaccine outcomes.