A new paper in Engineering outlines advances in live-cell glycocalyx engineering to improve adoptive cell therapies for B-cell lymphoma. The work frames glycocalyx optimization as a way to address persistent limitations in cellular immunotherapy, including high treatment costs and constrained antigen specificity. By focusing on how the glycocalyx can be modified in live cells, the study targets engineering approaches that may help steer cell-cell interactions inside the tumor microenvironment and improve therapeutic performance without changing the core adoptive cell paradigm.