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This week in the article “How to Prevent Food Allergies,” Scientific American discusses the changes over the years to medical advice regarding children and dietary allergens. The article notes the results of the Immune Tolerance Network’s (ITN’s) LEAP (Learning Early About Peanut Allergy) Study that prompted the change in the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidance. Current recommendations suggest that high-risk infants should be systematically fed peanut products as early as four to six months of age in order to prevent the development of peanut allergy.

A follow-up analysis of the participants from ITN’s LEAP (Learning Early About Peanut Allergy) Study has identified a strong association between the development of peanut allergy and the MALT1 gene. These findings were recently published in the February 27th issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

ITN’s ACTIVATE (Vaginal Microbiome Exposure and Immune Responses in C-section Infants) has opened for recruitment. The goal of this pilot study is to investigate how differences in the microbiome of a baby may protect, or put them at risk, for allergies. To do this, the study will measure whether wiping babies born by C-section with their mother’s vaginal fluids (which contains potentially beneficial bacteria) right after birth will lower the risk of allergy development.

The Immune Tolerance Network (ITN) is currently developing a clinical trial to test a new treatment for vitiligo, an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks pigment containing cells in the skin leading to disfiguring white spots.

The ITN is currently seeking proposals for clinical trials for novel therapeutic approaches to induce B cell tolerance in patients who are donor-sensitized and/or to prevent sensitization. The therapeutic strategy must test specific immune mechanisms and must provide a clear pathway to future immune tolerance trials in solid organ transplantation.

ITN’s recently published article, reporting the mechanistic results from the GRASS clinical trial, was highlighted in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology’s Editors’ Choice Feature in its May 2018 issue.

The gold standard to diagnose food allergy is an oral food challenge (OFC), but it can cause severe allergic reactions in some individuals. Reliable in vitro tests would eliminate undesirable aspects of OFCs, allowing easier and safer diagnoses and assessments of clinical responses to treatments.

This week on WRVO Public Radio's Take Care, hosts Lorraine Rapp and Linda Lowen talk with Dr. Gerald Nepom, director of the Immune Tolerance Network, about the ITN's LEAP study and the new guidelines for the introduction of peanut products that might prevent high risk children from developing the allergy. To listen to the full interview, click here.

In an important follow-up to LEAP-On, which demonstrated that the early introduction of peanut in high-risk infants led to durable prevention of peanut allergy, the investigators now show that early consumption of peanut in infants at high risk of peanut allergy is allergen-specific and does not prevent the development of other allergic disease to other foods, aeroallergens, or allergic reactions to tree nuts and sesame. Furthermore, peanut consumption does not hasten the resolution of eczema or egg allergy.

ITN’s BRAVOS (Evaluation of Brentuximab Vedotin for Diffuse Cutaneous System Sclerosis) has opened for recruitment. The goal of this clinical trial is to determine the safety of an investigational study drug, brentuximab vedotin (ADCETRIS®), in diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis (dcSSc). Researchers will also assess whether ADCETRIS® has any effect on symptoms associated with dcSSc, and will examine the effect of the ADCETRIS® on the immune system by looking at blood and skin samples.