Adoptive T cell therapy: points to consider

Adoptive Cell Therapy (ACT) has enjoyed a revival in recent years with the approval of CAR T cells for the treatment of patients with B cell malignancies. Advancing the use of adoptively transferred T cells for the treatment of patients with solid tumor and other hematologic malignancies however, will require addressing numerous effector cell intrinsic as well as tumor micro environmental hurdles and exploiting a broader ACT platform that includes not only engineered CAR-T cells, but also other forms of ACT including Endogenous T Cell (ETC) and Tumor-infiltrating Lymphocyte (TIL) therapy. In this review, we open this discussion with some ‘points to consider’ as a starting point for envisioning more effective strategies that are now feasible because of recent discoveries In immune resistance and the development of enabling technologies to harness the power of tumor - reactive T cells for adoptive cell therapy.