On Monday the ITN opened a new pilot study to compare two different methods for assessing allergic responses: environmental exposure chambers and nasal allergen challenges. The CAT EEC study, “Cat Pilot Study – Environmental Exposure Chamber (EEC) vs. Nasal Allergen Challenge (NAC),” is being conducted at Inflamax Research, Inc. in Ontario, Canada and led by Drs.
A new ITN type 1 diabetes trial opened today at the first site, Sanford Health in Sioux Falls, SD.
The ITN has an interest in antigen-specific T cell tolerance in multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease in which autoreactive T cells specific for myelin-associated antigens are thought to play a role in pathogenesis. Assessment of antigen-specific tolerance in multiple sclerosis will require reliable assays to detect and phenotype T cell responses to myelin-associated antigens in a clinical trial setting. To this end, the ITN is seeking assays for assessing functional tolerance and biomarkers of tolerance in antigen-specific CD4 and CD8 effector and regulatory T cells.
An article in Seattle Magazine about the landscape for immunotherapy in Seattle gives a nice mention of the Benaroya Research Institute and the Immune Tolerance Network:
Washington, DC - Three-year outcomes from an ongoing clinical trial suggest that high-dose immunosuppressive therapy followed by transplantation of a person's own blood-forming stem cells may induce sustained remission in some people with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). RRMS is the most common form of MS, a progressive autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the brain and spinal cord.
Last Friday the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN) opened a new combination therapy study in lupus nephritis, CALIBRATE, at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). The CALIBRATE Study will be led by Drs. Betty Diamond (North Shore Feinstein Institute), David Wofsy (UCSF), Cynthia Aranow (North Shore Feinstein Institute), and Maria Dall’Era (UCSF), and will test a novel regimen of rituximab (Rituxan, Genentech, Inc.) followed by belimumab (BENLYSTA®, GlaxoSmithKline) in patients with refractory lupus nephritis.
The results of the ACCESS study, “Abatacept and Cyclophosphamide Combination Therapy for Lupus Nephritis” sponsored by the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN) and led by Drs.
On Wednesday, October 8th the ITN opened the CATNIP study, “Anti-TSLP plus antigen-specific immunotherapy for induction of tolerance in individuals with cat allergy,” at the first site, the University of Wisconsin. CATNIP will test whether a novel therapeutic approach, cat immunotherapy combined with an investigational new drug called MEDI9929/AMG 157 (an anti-TSLP antibody being co-developed by Amgen and Medimmune) can lead to lasting tolerance to cat allergen.
A White Paper published yesterday in Transplantation (co-authored by ITN Deputy Director Larry Turka, MD) outlines recommendations from an international workshop convened by The Transplantation Society (TTS) to determine the necessary steps to make tolerance protocols a standard of care for transplant over the next decade. To date three academic centers have employed successful tolerance-inducing protocols in kidney transplant recipients (Stanf