On Jun. 18, 2008, Fred Hutch researchers described the first successful use of a human patient’s cloned infection-fighting T cells as the sole therapy to put an advanced solid-tumor cancer into long-term remission.

A team led by Cassian Yee, M.D., an associate member of the Clinical Research Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, reported these findings in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Yee and colleagues removed CD4+ T cells, a type of white blood cell, from a 52-year-old man whose Stage 4 melanoma had spread to a groin lymph node and to a lung. T cells specific to targeting the melanoma were then expanded vastly in the laboratory using modifications to existing methods.

The lab-grown cells were then infused into the patient with no additional pre- or post-conditioning therapies, such as growth-factor or cytokine treatment. Two months later, PET and CT scans revealed no tumors.

The patient remained disease free two years later, when he was last checked.