{"entity":{"id":"endogenous-t-cell-therapy","kind":"term","name":"Endogenous T-cell therapy","aka":["ETC therapy","endogenous T cell therapy","ETC","peripheral blood-derived antigen-specific T cells"],"tldr":"A treatment that finds the rare T cells in a patient's own blood that already recognise the cancer, grows large numbers of them in the laboratory without changing their genes, and infuses them back.","summary":"Yee, Lizee and Schueneman describe three ways of adoptive T-cell transfer: tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes taken from a biopsy; lymphocytes redirected by a chimeric antigen receptor or T-cell receptor; and the isolation and expansion of often low-frequency endogenous T cells reactive to tumour antigens from the peripheral blood, which they call endogenous T-cell (ETC) therapy (Cancer Journal 2015). It needs specialised methods to isolate and expand very low-frequency tumour-reactive T cells from blood, and the authors note that a trial can be started quickly once a tumour-associated target epitope has been identified (Cancer Journal 2015). The early melanoma trials at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center infused such cells as clones against MART-1, gp100, tyrosinase and NY-ESO-1.","asOf":"2026-11-05","links":[{"label":"DOI 10.1097/PPO.0000000000000158","url":"https://doi.org/10.1097/PPO.0000000000000158"},{"label":"PubMed 26588682","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26588682/"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":["melanoma"],"sections":[],"technologies":["til-therapy","tcr-t","car-t"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":["paper-yee-endogenous-t-cell-therapy-cancer-j-2015","paper-yee-endogenous-t-cells-immunol-rev-2014"],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"provenance":{"editedBy":"OnCo agent (Claude Opus 5.5)","editedOn":"2026-11-05","note":"Written from the MD Anderson faculty profile, ORCID, Europe PMC, ClinicalTrials.gov v2, SEC EDGAR and each organisation's own site, read on 5 November 2026."},"category":"Immunology"},"route":"/terms/endogenous-t-cell-therapy/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"melanoma","kind":"cancer","name":"Melanoma","route":"/cancers/melanoma/"}],"technology":[{"id":"car-t","kind":"technology","name":"CAR-T cell therapy","route":"/technologies/car-t/"},{"id":"tcr-t","kind":"technology","name":"TCR-T cell therapy","route":"/technologies/tcr-t/"},{"id":"til-therapy","kind":"technology","name":"TIL therapy","route":"/technologies/til-therapy/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-yee-ctl-clones-melanoma-pnas-2002","kind":"paper","name":"Adoptive T cell therapy using antigen-specific CD8+ T cell clones for the treatment of patients with metastatic melanoma: in vivo persistence, migration, and antitumor effect of transferred T cells","route":"/key-papers/paper-yee-ctl-clones-melanoma-pnas-2002/"},{"id":"paper-yee-endogenous-t-cell-therapy-cancer-j-2015","kind":"paper","name":"Endogenous T-Cell Therapy: Clinical Experience","route":"/key-papers/paper-yee-endogenous-t-cell-therapy-cancer-j-2015/"},{"id":"paper-wallen-fludarabine-ctl-melanoma-plos-one-2009","kind":"paper","name":"Fludarabine modulates immune response and extends in vivo survival of adoptively transferred CD8 T cells in patients with metastatic melanoma","route":"/key-papers/paper-wallen-fludarabine-ctl-melanoma-plos-one-2009/"},{"id":"paper-yee-t-cell-vitiligo-jem-2000","kind":"paper","name":"Melanocyte destruction after antigen-specific immunotherapy of melanoma: direct evidence of T cell-mediated vitiligo","route":"/key-papers/paper-yee-t-cell-vitiligo-jem-2000/"},{"id":"paper-chapuis-il21-ctl-ipilimumab-jco-2016","kind":"paper","name":"T-Cell Therapy Using Interleukin-21-Primed Cytotoxic T-Cell Lymphocytes Combined With Cytotoxic T-Cell Lymphocyte Antigen-4 Blockade Results in Long-Term Cell Persistence and Durable Tumor Regression","route":"/key-papers/paper-chapuis-il21-ctl-ipilimumab-jco-2016/"},{"id":"paper-yee-endogenous-t-cells-immunol-rev-2014","kind":"paper","name":"The use of endogenous T cells for adoptive transfer","route":"/key-papers/paper-yee-endogenous-t-cells-immunol-rev-2014/"},{"id":"paper-chapuis-cd8-central-memory-melanoma-pnas-2012","kind":"paper","name":"Transferred melanoma-specific CD8+ T cells persist, mediate tumor regression, and acquire central memory phenotype","route":"/key-papers/paper-chapuis-cd8-central-memory-melanoma-pnas-2012/"},{"id":"paper-hunder-cd4-ny-eso-1-melanoma-nejm-2008","kind":"paper","name":"Treatment of metastatic melanoma with autologous CD4+ T cells against NY-ESO-1","route":"/key-papers/paper-hunder-cd4-ny-eso-1-melanoma-nejm-2008/"}],"person":[{"id":"cassian-yee","kind":"person","name":"Cassian Yee","route":"/people/cassian-yee/"}],"trial":[{"id":"nct00101257","kind":"trial","name":"Autologous CD4+ antigen-specific T-cell clones in advanced ovarian or primary peritoneal cancer (Fred Hutchinson phase 1)","route":"/trials/nct00101257/"},{"id":"nct00045357","kind":"trial","name":"Autologous CD4+ antigen-specific T-cell clones in metastatic melanoma (Fred Hutchinson phase 1)","route":"/trials/nct00045357/"},{"id":"nct02210104","kind":"trial","name":"Autologous CD4+ NY-ESO-1-specific T cells with ipilimumab in NY-ESO-1-expressing tumours (MD Anderson phase 1, withdrawn)","route":"/trials/nct02210104/"},{"id":"nct00438984","kind":"trial","name":"CD8+ antigen-specific T-cell clones after cyclophosphamide, with aldesleukin, in stage IV melanoma (Fred Hutchinson phase 1, NCI-2010-01280)","route":"/trials/nct00438984/"},{"id":"nct00553306","kind":"trial","name":"CD8+ antigen-specific T-cell clones after cyclophosphamide, with aldesleukin, in stage IV melanoma (Fred Hutchinson phase 1/2, NCI-2010-01281)","route":"/trials/nct00553306/"},{"id":"nct00045149","kind":"trial","name":"CD8+ T-cell clones against cancer-testis antigens in metastatic melanoma (Fred Hutchinson phase 1)","route":"/trials/nct00045149/"},{"id":"nct00317759","kind":"trial","name":"Fludarabine before CD8+ antigen-specific T-cell clones in stage IV melanoma (Fred Hutchinson phase 1)","route":"/trials/nct00317759/"},{"id":"nct01106235","kind":"trial","name":"IL-21-modulated CD8+ antigen-specific T cells with cyclophosphamide and aldesleukin in metastatic melanoma (Fred Hutchinson phase 1, terminated)","route":"/trials/nct01106235/"},{"id":"nct00002786","kind":"trial","name":"Tyrosinase-specific CD8+ T cells, gene-modified and unmodified, in metastatic melanoma (Fred Hutchinson phase 1/2)","route":"/trials/nct00002786/"}]}}