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Activation of innate immunity is critical for vaccine development and immunotherapy, through triggering antigen specific immune responses. Natural killer T (NKT) cells are a unique type of innate immune cells which exert potent anti-viral and anti-metastasis function, through producing interferon-γ and activating dendritic cells to present tumor antigens to CD8 T cells. alpha-Galactosylceramide, a synthetic antigen for NKT cells, is an adjuvant for protein antigens which can induce protective immunity against cancer and viral diseases, and has been proven to be safe and immune stimulatory in human cancer and hepatitis patients. Current existing problem for alpha-galactosylceramide is its induction of anergy of NKT cells, due to the non-selective presentation of alpha-galactosylceramide antigen by B cells. We hypothesized that nanoparticle formulated alpha-galactosylceramide may be selectively presented by …