Cellular Immunotherapies: From Basic Insights to Novel Clinical Applications

Cellular immunotherapy has transformed modern medicine by harnessing and reprogramming immune cells to combat serious diseases. While T cell-based approaches such as CAR-T have dominated the field, a broader immune network — encompassing innate effectors, antigen-presenting cells, and virus-based platforms — remains underexplored as a therapeutic resource. Concurrently, the expansion of cellular therapies beyond oncology into infectious diseases, including viral and fungal pathogens, opens new avenues for intervention. A critical but often overlooked dimension of this expansion is safety: immunotoxicological consequences of cellular and viral therapies, including cytokine release and off-target effects, remain a key barrier to wider clinical adoption. Integrating insights from innate immunity, oncolytic virology, antifungal and antiviral host defense, and immunotoxicology is essential to advance the next generation of effective and safe therapies.Despite significant progress, key challenges continue to limit the real-world impact of cellular immunotherapies. These include inadequate activation of innate effectors within hostile microenvironments, pathogen-driven immune evasion, insufficient persistence and specificity of engineered cell platforms, and safety concerns — particularly immunotoxicity and off-target inflammation — that arise when viral or engineered cell platforms are deployed in complex disease contexts.This Research Topic aims to bridge the gap between fundamental immunological science and clinical translation by bringing together perspectives from innate immunity, oncolytic virology, antifungal and antiviral host defense, and cell and gene engineering. A particular emphasis is placed on how safety, persistence, and specificity of cellular and virus-based therapies can be improved by grounding therapeutic design in mechanistic understanding of host–pathogen interactions and immune regulation across oncological and infectious disease settings.We welcome original research, reviews, and perspectives addressing:o Oncolytic viruses and viral vectors — mechanisms of action, immune activation, and combination strategies across tumor typeso Antifungal and antiviral cellular immunity — innate and adaptive host defense mechanisms and their exploitation for therapyo Immunotoxicology of cellular and viral therapies — cytokine release, off-target effects, and safety profilingo Innate immune cell platforms — NK cells, macrophages, and dendritic cells as therapeutic effectorso Gene and cell therapy engineering — approaches to enhance persistence, specificity, and safety in oncological and infectious disease contextso Cell-based vaccine platforms — dendritic cell and other engineered cellular vaccines as therapeutic products for oncological and infectious disease applications Topic editors: Telma Miyuki Oshiro, Maria Notomi Sato, Fabio Seiti Yamada Yoshikawa, Matias Melendez Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/83005/cellular-immunotherapies-from-basic-insights-to-novel-clinical-applications