Patent ID: 7601342

Claim:
A method of producing a substantially pure cytotoxic population of educated, antigen-specific immune effector cells, wherein the immune effector cells are T-lymphocytes and wherein said population comprises CD4 + immune effector cells and cytotoxic CD8 + immune effector cells, the method comprising contacting immune effector cells with hybrid cells, wherein said hybrid cells are generated by fusion between at least one mammalian dendritic cell and at least one mammalian tumor or cancer cell that expresses a cell-surface antigen, wherein the dendritic cell and the tumor or cancer cell are from the same mammalian species, wherein the dendritic cell can process and present antigens, and wherein at least half of the hybrid cells express, in an amount effective to stimulate an immune system, (a) a MHC class II molecule, (b) B7, and (c) the cell-surface antigen, wherein the contacting causes differentiation of naïve immune effector cells in the population of T lymphocytes to educated immune effector cells, thereby producing the substantially pure cytotoxic population of educated, antigen-specific immune effector cells.