Methods for treating an infectious or neoplastic disease

1. A method of treating a subject suffering from an infectious or neoplastic disease with immunotherapy comprising:

(a) incubating a cell from an infectious or neoplastic disease obtained from the subject and an immune cell in a suitable tissue culture apparatus under conditions that support viability of the immune cell and growth of the cell from the infectious or neoplastic disease obtained from the subject for a period of time sufficient to determine whether the immune cell has an effect on the cell from the infectious or neoplastic disease obtained from the subject;

(b) determining the number of viable cells from the infectious or neoplastic disease, if any, that are present after step (a), wherein the determining step comprises carrying out a clonogenic assay to determine how many, if any, infectious or neoplastic disease cells are present;

(c) determining a critical concentration of immune cells required to treat or eradicate the infectious or neoplastic disease in the subject; and

(d) administering to the subject the critical concentration of immune cells determined in step (c).

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the subject is a human.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the neoplastic disease is a melanoma.

4. The method according to claim 3 , wherein the immune cell is a tumor antigen-specific CD4 + or CD8 + T-cell.

5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein the critical concentration is at least 10 7 tumor antigen-specific CD4 + or CD8 + T-cells/ml tumor.

6. The method according to claim 1 further comprising in step (d) co-administering a cytokine with the immune cells.

7. The method according to claim 6 , wherein the cytokine is an interleukin.

8. The method according to claim 7 , wherein the interleukin is selected from the group consisting of IL-2, IL-12, IL-21, and combinations thereof.