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Cassian Yee is a cancer doctor and scientist in Houston who grows a patient's own cancer-recognising T cells in the laboratory and gives them back as a treatment. Cassian Yee's early trials in Seattle were among the studies that showed such cells can find and shrink melanoma.
Cassian Yee is Professor in the Departments of Melanoma Medical Oncology and Immunology at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Director of the Program for T Cell-Based Therapies (ProTCT) and Director of the Solid Tumor Cell Therapy Program, and has held the Kenneth D. Muller Professorship in Melanoma Research since 2022 (MD Anderson faculty profile). Cassian Yee has co-directed MD Anderson's Adoptive Cell Therapy Platform since 2019, founded and co-directs the MD Anderson and Rice University immunotherapy consortium (since 2018), and was Scientific Director of the Cell Therapy Manufacturing Facility and leader of the TIL Working Group from 2020 to 2023 and Co-Director of the Moon Shots immunotherapy platform from 2020 to 2021 (MD Anderson faculty profile).
Cassian Yee received an MD from the University of Manitoba in 1986, was a Medical Research Council of Canada fellow at the Ontario Cancer Institute and Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, trained in internal medicine at Stanford University Medical Center, and from 1991 trained and then worked at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, where Cassian Yee was on staff until 2013 (MD Anderson faculty profile).
The work in Seattle tested T cells taken from a patient's own blood, selected for one tumour antigen and expanded in the laboratory, now called endogenous T-cell therapy. Infused CD8+ T-cell clones against MART-1 and gp100 persisted, travelled to tumours and caused regressions in patients with metastatic melanoma (PNAS 2002); one patient's MART-1 clones also destroyed normal pigment cells in the skin (Journal of Experimental Medicine 2000); and CD4+ T cells against NY-ESO-1 produced a durable remission in one patient with refractory melanoma (New England Journal of Medicine 2008). Later trials added fludarabine or cyclophosphamide conditioning and CTLA-4 blockade with ipilimumab (PLoS ONE 2009, PNAS 2012, Journal of Clinical Oncology 2016).
| Title | Journal | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Adoptive T cell therapy using antigen-specific CD8+ T cell clones for the treatment of patients with metastatic melanoma | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2002 |
| Treatment of metastatic melanoma with autologous CD4+ T cells against NY-ESO-1 | New England Journal of Medicine | 2008 |
| 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 | Journal of Clinical Oncology | 2016 |
| Endogenous T-Cell Therapy: Clinical Experience | The Cancer Journal | 2015 |
A reference map of tumour T cells, with a candidate state linked to resistance that could inform T-cell therapy and biomarker work.
Combining antigen-specific T cells with CTLA-4 blockade was safe in this small study and produced durable responses, supporting checkpoint inhibitors as partners for cell therapy.
The paper gives the approach its name and makes the case for it beyond melanoma.
An overview of the endogenous T-cell approach from one of its developers, written as checkpoint inhibitors and engineered cell therapies were entering the clinic.
Infused T-cell clones can convert to a central memory type in the body, which may underlie lasting benefit.
Lymphodepletion before infusion helps transferred T cells survive, but the rise in regulatory T cells suggests conditioning alone is not enough for anti-tumour effect.
Helper (CD4+) T cells, not only killer (CD8+) T cells, can drive a remission, and one targeted infusion can widen the immune response to other tumour antigens.
It showed that T cells taken from a patient's blood, selected for one melanoma antigen and grown as clones, can survive after infusion, reach tumours and kill the antigen-carrying cells there.
Shares American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), Melanoma and the tags immunotherapy, melanoma, trialist.
Shares Melanoma and the tags immunotherapy, melanoma, trialist.
Shares Melanoma and the tags immunotherapy, melanoma, trialist.
Shares Melanoma and the tags immunotherapy, melanoma, trialist.
Shares Melanoma and the tags immunotherapy, melanoma, trialist.
Shares Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, Melanoma and the tags immunotherapy, melanoma.
Shares TIL therapy, Melanoma and the tags cell-therapy, melanoma.
Shares Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Melanoma and the tags immunotherapy, trialist.
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