Background:The immune system is very powerful. It can precisely
target pathogens and aFack them with high eﬃciency. Most
infec.ons last a few days, or at most weeks, and then are
permanently eliminated with liFle or no damage to the body. In
contrast cancer can last many years and oPen results in death.
Cancer will aﬀect one in three of us. Many treatments for cancer
have been developed, but are oPen of limited eﬃcacy and have
harsh side eﬀects. Therefore, it would be a major breakthrough
in cancer therapy if the power and precision of the immune
system could be brought to bear against cancer. Most eﬀorts to
treat cancer with immunotherapy have involved vaccines. Some
vaccines have had success, many have failed. Another, more
recently developed treatment is that of T cell reprogramming. In
this approach, T cells are taken from a pa.ent, gene.cally
modiﬁed to express an.bodies against a novel an.gen, and then
infused intravenously back into the pa.ent. The use of
autologous T cells prevents graP-‐vs-‐host dise