Welcome To ITN’s New 7-Year Grant Award Period

We are excited to share that Benaroya Research Institute (BRI) has received notification that, for the second time, Jerry Nepom, MD, PhD and team have been awarded the Immune Tolerance Network grant  from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to lead the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN).  

As we enter this new award period, some parts of ITN’s structure will look a little different than previously. First of all, some parts of the leadership structure and/or roles have changed:

• The Network is led by Jerry Nepom, MD, PhD, BRI (PI on this grant) and Bill St. Clair, MD, Duke University (co-investigator and co-director).
• Three new Deputy Directors will lead ITN’s therapeutic areas. These Deputy Directors will oversee ITN’s Clinical Trial Physicians, as well as, Lead Biologists, who will be responsible for each therapeutic area mechanistic portfolio and operate from each Deputy Directors’ laboratory:
  • Christian Larsen, MD, PhD, Emory University (Transplantation)
  • Tanya M. Laidlaw, MD, Harvard Medical School (Allergy)
  • David Fox, MD, University of Michigan (Autoimmunity)
• Two new Deputy Directors for Mechanistic & Laboratory studies will include:
  • Soumya Raychaudhuri, MD, PhD, Harvard Medical School (Data & Systems Immunology)
  • Mark Anderson, MD, PhD, UCSF (Functional Immunology & Cellular Assays)

Second, going forward type 1 diabetes will fall under the autoimmune disease therapeutic area.

The 7-year award supports the work of the ITN in cutting-edge clinical trials that, in conjunction with laboratory studies of immunological responses, are designed to uncover and target immune system checkpoints that have the ability to reverse autoimmune diseases and allergies and facilitate organ transplantation. In order to achieve the Network’s goals with a flexible, broad, integrated, and impactful organization, very close interactions must occur across all of the operational components.

For more detail about the ITN’s goals, structure, processes, approaches, and more, please see the 2021 ITN Funding Renewal Application, which is available on the Member Portal through a shortcut on the right hand side under “ITN Documents.”