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In a letter published recently in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Immune Tolerance Network (ITN) investigators describe the experience of the ITN’s GPAC study (Immunoprophylaxis of Allergic Disease) that aimed to test whether early intervention with a form of oral immunotherapy in at-risk young children could prevent the development of asthma. Evidence suggests that environmental exposure to allergens early on in life via inhalation and mucosal exposure can induce regulatory (vs. inflammatory) responses towards those allergens. The aim of this study was to test the ability of a sublingual allergen mixture (compared to placebo) to enhance mucosal exposure to certain aeroallergens in very young children at high risk for allergy, possibly arresting the development of inflammatory responses and preventing the onset of allergic disease.

Data from three ITN type 1 diabetes trials will be featured during the “Clinical Trials of T Cell Therapeutics for Reversing Type 1 Diabetes” session at the Annual American Diabetes Association (ADA) Scientific Sessions in Chicago, IL. This session will take place on June 22 from 8:00am-10:00am CT.

In a manuscript published this week in Arthritis & Rheumatism, Immune Tolerance Network (ITN) investigators sought to better understand the distinction between patients who did and did not achieve the primary endpoint in the RAVE Study (Rituximab for the Treatment of ANCA-Associated Vasculitis and Microscopic Polyangiitis). The RAVE study established rituximab (Rituxan®; Genentech), a B-cell depletor, as a treatment alternative to cyclophosphamide (standard of care) for remission induction in patients with ANCA-Associated Vasculitis (AAV), a severe autoimmune disease marked by certain type of antibody (ANCA) that targets the blood vessels. Although outcomes for patients with AAV have improved over the past decades, about a quarter of patients fail standard induction regimens due to persistent or recurrent disease. The current study sought to better understand characteristics that predicted outcomes at 6 months.

Sandy Feng, MD, PhD (University of California, San Francisco) will present 5-year follow-up data on tolerant patients from the Immune Tolerance Network’s (ITN’s) WISP-R study, “Withdrawal of Immunosuppression in Pediatric Liver Transplant Recipients” next week at the annual American Transplant Congress (ATC) meeting in Seattle, WA. The talk will report on donor-specific antibody (DSA) in relation to 5-year outcomes.  The primary results from the WISP-R study were reported last year in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

A letter published today in the New England Journal of Medicine reports on the long-term outcomes of patients from two ITN-sponsored combined kidney and bone marrow transplantation studies led by David H. Sachs, MD (Massachusetts General Hospital), Tatsuo Kawai, MD, PhD (Massachusetts General Hospital), Megan Sykes, MD (Columbia University) and A. Benedict Cosimi, MD (Massachusetts General Hospital). The goal of these studies was to create recipient tolerance of the donor kidney by first creating a temporary donor-host “chimeric” immune system via hematopoietic stem cell transplant. The first study enrolled five patients, and a subsequent (slightly modified) study enrolled another five patients.

The quantification of mature T cell subsets is an important prognostic marker for understanding disease. Killer T cells and Helper T cells, characterized by the expression of cell surface marker proteins CD8 or CD4, respectively, effect different aspects of the adaptive immune system, and the ratio of these two populations can reveal important information about the state of the immune system. In a manuscript published recently in the Journal of Immunological Methods, ITN researchers worked with Adaptive Biotechnologies to conduct high-throughput deep sequencing of T cell receptors (TCRs) using their ImmunoSEQ^TM platform.

Three abstracts from the ITN’s RAVE study (Rituximab for the Treatment of ANCA-Associated Vasculitis and Microscopic Polyangiitis) led by John Stone, MD (Massachusetts General Hospital) and Ulrich Specks, MD (Mayo Clinic) were presented this week by the RAVE team at the 16^th International Vasculitis & ANCA Workshop in Paris, France. These abstracts include.

Bio-IT World announced the winners of its Best Practices Awards competition yesterday at its annual meeting in Boston, MA. Out of the 34 projects evaluated this year, including those from industry giants GlaxoSmithKline, Amgen and Genentech, the Immune Tolerance Network’s (ITN) Clinical Trials Research Portal, TrialShare, received one of only two honorable mentions (see summary of the awards here). The Bio-IT World’s Best Practices Awards “recognize organizations for their outstanding innovations and excellence in the use of technologies and novel business strategies that will advance biomedical and translational research, drug development, and/or clinical trials.”

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).