Moving toward the ideal autologous adoptive T-cell therapy for cancer

Despite being one of the earliest immunotherapies to prove that the immune system can effectively recognize and eradicate cancer, autologous adoptive T-cell therapies remain largely limited to academic centers and research trials. The highly individualized protocols and the heterogeneous nature of the expanded T-cell products hinder effectiveness, commercial development, and regulatory approvals. The report by Li and colleagues details a novel method of generating cancer-specific autologous T cells from patients receiving anti-PD-1 checkpoint blockade immunotherapy. Their method achieved promising results in four initial patients treated in a pilot study. While further studies are required to characterize the autologous T-cell products generated and their effectiveness in larger cohorts of patients, the protocol they describe addresses several of the roadblocks that have prevented more widespread use of autologous adoptive T-cell therapy.