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A March 6, 2013 Wall Street Journal article, “Food Allergy Advice for Kids: Don’t Delay Peanuts, Eggs”, discusses the changing landscape surrounding food allergy prevention, citing the Immune Tolerance Network’s (ITN’s) LEAP study as a pivotal effort in determining whether the early introduction of allergenic foods may actually help prevent the development of allergies. The article points out that the increasing prevalence of food allergies in children in the US and other Western countries calls into question the guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics that recommend avoiding the introduction of certain allergenic foods (milk, eggs, peanuts, shellfish, tree nuts, and fish) before a certain age as a strategy to avoid future allergies.

Single-drug approaches to treat type 1 diabetes (T1D) have so far yielded only modest results: just a handful of biologics have been able to transiently delay pancreatic beta cell destruction. As such, creating long-term, sustained improvements in T1D may require multiple agents combined in strategic ways. Data from the first combination study from The Immune Tolerance Network (ITN) Type 1 Diabetes Preclinical Consortium was published last week in PLoS ONE alongside data from the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology (LIAI) (see here).

The Immune Tolerance Network (ITN) and Imperial College London are collaborating on a new pilot study examining immunological responses to cat allergen. Allergy to cat dander is one of the most common forms of allergic disease in the US and Europe, and can reduce the quality of life for allergy sufferers. The only form of disease-modifying therapy that does not just treat symptoms is immunotherapy, in which cat allergens are administered over a period of time to desensitize a patient. The goal of this pilot study is to measure time-dependent cellular patterns and immunological changes in response to cat allergen, and understand how these immunological markers correspond with clinical symptoms.

The ITN is pleased to announce the public launch of ITN TrialShare, its new clinical trials research portal. This system represents a significant leap forward in data sharing and transparency, collaborative hypothesis generation and specimen sharing between the ITN and the broader scientific community.

Two-year follow-up data from the ITN’s HALT-MS study (High-Dose Immunosuppression and Autologous Transplantation for Multiple Sclerosis) led by Richard Nash, MD (Colorado Blood Cancer Institute) will be presented in an oral abstract at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting on December 11^th, 2012 in Atlanta, GA.  The goal of the HALT-MS study is to use autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) plus high-dose immunochemotherapy  in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis to regenerate the immune system in a non-autoreactive manner.

Oral Immunotherapy is known to be an effective means of desensitizing some patients to food allergens, but could the early introduction of foods in high-risk patients prevent allergies altogether? That is the primary question to be addressed by the ITN’s LEAP study (Promoting Tolerance to Peanut in High-Risk Children) led by Gideon Lack, MD (Kings College London) which aims to determine whether peanut oral immunotherapy or peanut avoidance is better for reducing peanut allergies in at-risk infants. Patients with peanut sensitization are the ones most likely to develop peanut allergy in the future. In this new Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology paper, investigators determined criteria to identify infants who are at risk for developing peanut allergy but without already-established clinical peanut allergy.

With deep regret and sadness we note the passing of George Eisenbarth, MD, a member of the ITN family, steering committee, and executive committee since the founding of the network.  George was a pioneer in the field of type 1 diabetes research, a great mentor to many, and a wonderful colleague, whose passion for preventing autoimmune diabetes energized us all.

Three abstracts from the ITN’s RAVE study (Rituximab for the Treatment of ANCA-associated Vasculitis  and Microscopic Polyangiitis) will be presented at the upcoming American College of Rheumatology (ACR) annual meeting in Washington, DC November on 9-14, 2012.

Data from three Immune Tolerance Network (ITN) type 1 diabetes studies will be presented at the upcoming European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) meeting on October 1-5, 2012 in Berlin, Germany.

Immune Tolerance Network (ITN) investigators Stephen Durham, MD and Guy Scadding, MD from the Imperial College London conducted a pilot study in collaboration with ALK Abello to evaluate a technique to reproducibly measure time-dependent immunologic responses to allergens using nasal secretion collections. Results from this pilot study are published in the Journal of Immunological Methods [see here].