Directed maturation of stem cells and production of programmable antigen presenting dentritic cells therefrom

A method of producing cancer-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes, the method comprising the steps of:

• a) isolating CD34 positive hematopoietic stem cells;
• b) incubating the stem cells in a cell culture medium comprising serum, GM-CSF, IL-4, and SCF, whereby the stem cells are directed to mature into programmable antigen presenting cells (pAPCs);
• c) mixing the pAPCs with tumor cell derived material from said cancer selected from the group consisting of tumor cell lysate, tumor cell RNA, tumor cell poly A+ RNA, cDNA derived from tumor cell RNA, and cDNA derived from tumor cell RNA incorporated into an expression vector;
• d) incubating the pAPCs with the tumor cell derived material, whereby loaded dendritic cells are produced;
• e) incubating the loaded dendritic cells with TNF-α, whereby cancer-specific pSAPCs capable of stimulating an immune response to said cancer are produced;
• and
• f) incubating the pSAPCs with cytotoxic T lymphocytes, whereby cancer-specific activated T lymphocytes are produced.