The ITN Tolerance Assay Group (TAG) employ and investigates diagnostic procedures in its attempts to develop a comprehensive picture of the state of the immune response both prior to, during and following treatment with tolerogenic therapies. A key goal of the TAG is the development of a standardized program of immunological monitoring in order to identify surrogate immunological and genetic markers of tolerance that will act as a guide for both immunosuppression withdrawal and tolerogenic treatment in islet and kidney transplantation, autoimmune diseases and allergy & asthma. In addition, the mechanistic data arising from the application of assay procedures in all trials will be applied to the development of second generation tolerance therapeutics.

To this end, the ITN invests in studies whose goals lie outside of clinical safety and/or efficacy, rather focusing on mechanistic studies of well-defined patient cohorts. At present, the ITN is particularly interested in populations of transplant recipients who, despite cessation of all maintenance immunosuppression, fail to reject their grafts. These studies rely heavily upon the use of the ITN’s core facilities, and investigators may apply other, unique assays in their analyses.