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Enhanced Detection Of Neoantigen-Reactive T Cells Targeting Unique And Shared Oncogenes For Personalized Cancer Immunotherapy., Rami Yossef, Eric Tran, Drew C Deniger, Alena Gros, Anna Pasetto, Maria R Parkhurst, Jared J Gartner, Todd D Prickett, Gal Cafri, Paul F Robbins, Steven A Rosenberg

Eric Tran, PhD

Adoptive cell transfer (ACT) of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) targeting neoantigens can mediate tumor regression in selected patients with metastatic epithelial cancer. However, effectively identifying and harnessing neoantigen-reactive T cells for patient treatment remains a challenge and it is unknown whether current methods to detect neoantigen-reactive T cells are missing potentially clinically relevant neoantigen reactivities. We thus investigated whether the detection of neoantigen-reactive TILs could be enhanced by enriching T cells that express PD-1 and/or T cell activation markers followed by microwell culturing to avoid overgrowth of nonreactive T cells. In 6 patients with metastatic epithelial cancer, this method led to …