When transferred with a CD19 CAR RNA or the Blina-RNA, those T cells not only exhibited more potent anti-tumor activity in vitro, probably because of the presence of more effector memory T cells, but also showed improved anti-tumor activity in an aggressive leukemia model compared with the CD3/CD28 bead-expanded T cells, which exhibited a more uniform central memory phenotype. The gene discussed is CD28; the disease is leukemia.