The coming of age of adoptive T-cell therapy for viral infection after stem cell transplantation

The success or failure of allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT) in curing a variety of hematological disorders, centers to a large extent on the quality of the immune recovery of the donor graft. As well as exerting a graft-versus-malignancy effect, critical in achieving cure of hematological malignancies, donor T lymphocytes confer protective immunity against resident viruses that reactivate during the period of profound immunosuppression following the graft. As they engraft alloreacting donor T lymphocytes can cause life-threatening graft versus host disease (GVHD).