Overview
TIGER-Lung is a clinical trial testing whether blocking a specific inflammatory signal can change the course of injury in a transplanted lung.
When a transplanted lung suddenly starts working less well, the episode is called acute lung allograft dysfunction. Some of these episodes resolve on their own and some progress toward permanent damage, and from the outside they can look identical. Our earlier work found that these episodes are not one condition but several, each driven by different biology. That raised a practical question: if the process driving a particular episode can be identified, can a drug aimed at that specific process change the outcome?
What the trial is testing
The trial focuses on recipients whose episode shows high activity of interferon gamma, an inflammatory signal the immune system uses to coordinate attacks on infected and abnormal cells. Participants are identified using a molecular measurement from the airway rather than by symptoms alone.
Those participants receive either emapalumab, a drug that blocks interferon gamma, or an inactive placebo, assigned by chance. The trial is evaluating safety first, along with early evidence of whether the treatment helps. This is the first test of the underlying idea that identifying the responsible pathway before treating it produces better results than treating every episode the same way.
Study details
- Full title: Targeting Interferon Gamma with Emapalumab in Lung Transplant Recipients with Interferon Gamma-high Acute Lung Allograft Dysfunction
- Design: Randomized, placebo-controlled
- Principal investigator: John Greenland, MD, PhD
- Supported by: Sobi
- Dates: March 2026 to December 2027
Taking part
To ask whether this trial is open to you, contact the lab at [email protected].