Preclinical development of T cell receptor gene therapy

The adoptive transfer of TCR gene-modified T cells has been developed with the aim to induce immune reactivity toward defined tumor-associated antigens to which the endogenous T cell repertoire is non-responsive. Here we discuss in which areas preclinical studies in mouse models can or cannot be expected to be of value to guide clinical trial design, and how the available data from preclinical studies should influence forthcoming clinical trials.