Amplifying natural antitumor immunity for personalized immunotherapy

T-cells engineered with T-cell receptors (TCR-T), chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells, and neoantigen vaccines have each demonstrated therapeutic success in clinical trials, but many of these therapies can only benefit a small group of patient types owing to the restriction of certain tumor-associated antigens; personalized immunotherapy customizes cancer treatments to each patient, achieving greater responses without damaging normal tissues. In a recent Cell Research paper, He et al. show that TCR-T cells engineered with TCRs from naturally occurring tumor antigen-specific (Tas) T-cells are an effective therapy against non-small cell lung carcinoma, and a promising agent for future immunotherapies.