Those are routinely used are allogenic bone marrow transplantation and peripheral blood stem cell infusion. It is possible that the bone marrow might be a good place too. It is also arguable which precise T-cells are the best to transfer, since T- cells are differentiated into many subsets.
Furthermore, in order to produce enough effectors T-cells, specific T-cells from peripheral blood or tumor specimens are isolated and generated in vitro, and these are then clonally expanded using various approaches. The T-cells are then reinfused into the patient with the expectation that they will then target antigens. There is much evidence that this approach works, although it also seems that this can be engineered in vivo under certain situations.
For most effective T-cell therapy, it has been shown that telemores which is the element that is involved in cell proliferation is an important factor. In other words, the larger and stronger the size of the cell and the more 'intense' its memory for proliferation, the more optimal the T-cell is for long-term immune protection
It has also been thought that the insertion of memory T- cells...
All of this is being worked on.
Adoptive T-cell therapy was first mentioned in 1955 (Mitchison, 1955). It still has to be FDA approved, and is still in its beginning stages. However, there is much optimism that T-cell therapy is an important route to improving T-cell response to cancer and to infectious disease. The next step is actual clinical trials on humans to see whether they can target and effectively destroy cancer stems cells.
Sources
Greenberg, P.D. 1991, 'Adoptive T cell therapy of tumors. Ad. Immunol. 49, pp. 281-355.
Jamieson, B.D., & Ahmed, R. 1989,'T cell memory. J. Exp. Med. 169, pp. 1993-2005
June, C.H. 2007, 'Principles of adoptive T cell cancer therapy', J. Clin. Invest., 117, pp.11204-1212.
MedecineNet.com. Definition of T cell. Online. Available at: http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=11300
Mitchison, N.A., 1955, 'Studies on the immunological response to foreign tumor transplants in the mouse', J. Exp. Med. 102. pp. 157-177.
