Reprogramming away from the exhausted T cell state

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) describe somatic cells that have been reprogrammed to the pluripotent state from which they can then be differentiated into any cell type of the body. This ability has tremendous implications on a wide number of medical sciences and applications, including cancer treatments. In many cancer patients, tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) have reached an exhausted state and are unable to exert effector function despite detecting and localizing at the tumor. Although the isolation, ex vivo expansion and transplantation of TILs is effective in a significant group of patients, too many patients do not respond positively to this treatment, in part because the expanded TIL population does not include a sufficient number of cells with the naïve or memory phenotype. Cell reprogramming using iPSC technologies aims to overcome this problem by returning TILs to the pluripotent state from which they can be differentiated into a heterogeneous population of T cells that are best suited to combat the tumor.