Generating long-lived, nonexhausted antigen-specific CD8+ T cells that have stem-like T cell memory properties (i.e., the capacity to proliferate and to generate a burst of cytotoxic effector cells upon encountering cognate antigen) is the focus of several immunotherapeutic strategies (e.g., therapeutic vaccination, blockade of coinhibitory receptors such as PD-1, and adoptive T cell therapies) for HIV (10–12) and other diseases in which CD8+ T cell exhaustion is observed, such as other chronic infections and cancers (4). Here, CD8A is linked to cancer.