The scientists believe adding the genetically modified cells to skin grafts would give the defence system a boost.
The main aim of the trial is to assess the maximum dose of modified cells that can be safely injected.
The researchers were able to detect the modified cells in patients for months, and in some cases years after the infusion.
Mice given the modified cells produced more than six times the number of "killer T" cells, which are immune cells produced to neutralise a target.
Animal tests, described in the journal Cell Stem Cell, have now used modified skin cells to repair the insulation.
The modified T cells are grown outside the body for several weeks until billions of them are ready and are then injected back into the patient.
And the researchers found that their modified dendritic cells responded far more powerfully to the cells or viruses for which they had been primed.
Research in the past has show that genetically modified tumour cells can be turned against the tumour they came from, "but use of the patient's own skin cells would be much easier", Dr Hart wrote.
T-cells with genetically modified viruses carrying genes that coded for receptors to melanoma molecules.
The mice were genetically modified so that their beta cells produced the protein.
T-cells survived in 15 of the patients, although in most of them the degree to which those cells expressed the modified genes waned.
Brinker stepped in and had the idea of extracting living cells from genetically modified organisms and grafting them onto the backs of cockroaches controlled by pheromones.
Another experiment saw some mice implanted with tumour cells which were genetically modified to experience boosted lymphatic growth.
The modified flies had just as many of these brain cells at 20 days as on their first day.
The modified liposomes were then added to the membranes of eye cancer cells - and sure enough the cells were found to respond to light.
From 30 precious milligrams drilled out of the sample they extracted mitochondrial DNA. The mitochondria, a cell's power packs, are the much-modified descendants of bacteria that took up residence in the ancestors of modern animal and plant cells a billion years ago.
But a modified approach that does not involve viruses is likely to be the ultimate way of making human stem cells.
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