ClinicalTrials.gg
RecruitingNCT07611435BeACON4AGUpdated Oct 8, 2026

Beginning to Assess an Appropriate CONtrol for Oral Food Challenges in Alpha-Gal Syndrome (CoFAR-13) - BeACON4AG

A Phase 2 interventional study of DBFC with 150g of Alpha-gal Knock Out (KO) pork and DBFC with 150g of Wild Type (WT) pork in Alpha-Gal Syndrome and Allergy, sponsored by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Recruiting at 4 sites in United States. Open to participants aged 12 Years to 50 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-10-08.

Sponsored by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) · Phase 2, Interventional, and Diagnostic

From the registry’s dates

  • Started Sep 2026; still recruiting 1 month later.
Updated Oct 8, 2026Start date movedGo to Updates ↓
Phase
Phase 2
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
160
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
12 Years to 50 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

This is a multisite, randomized, double-blind, controlled cross-over trial with detailed characterization of participants with varying clinical sub-phenotypes of Alpha-gal Syndrome (AGS) who are then evaluated by oral food challenges with alpha-gal Knock Out (KO) pork versus Wild Type (WT) pork. Each participant will serve as their own control and ingest both alpha-gal-KO and WT pork on different days, with a minimum of an 8-day washout period between oral food challenges.

The primary objective is to determine whether the odds of positive challenges among participants with suspected alpha-gal syndrome are lower with alpha-gal Knock Out (KO) pork as compared to Wild Type (WT) pork during Double Blind Food Challenge (DBFC)

02

Conditions studied

  • Alpha-Gal Syndrome
  • Allergy

Browse trials for

Keywords

  • Alpha-Gal Syndrome
  • Oral Food Challenge
03

In context

Hypersensitivity

1,055 studies on the registry are indexed under Hypersensitivity; 149 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 160 is above the median of 73 across 691 interventional studies indexed under Hypersensitivity.

Browse Hypersensitivity studies →

Lead sponsor

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is the lead sponsor of 2,446 studies on the registry; 179 are open to participants now.

Of its 405 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 302 (75%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
12 Years to 50 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  1. Able to understand and provide and/or have a parent or guardian able to understand and provide informed consent. Participants 12-17 years old must be able to provide assent
  2. Participants who are willing to complete study procedures and follow-up
  3. Have clinical history consistent with Alpha-gal Syndrome (AGS)
  4. Have alpha-gal-specific Immunoglobin E (IgE) >= 0.1KU/L at screening
  5. Report reaction consistent with AGS within the previous 24 months (prior to enrollment)
  6. If with , agree to be abstinent or use an US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved method of for the duration of the study
  7. Willing to be trained on the proper use of a device for the self-administration of epinephrine (i.e., autoinjector or intra-nasal spray) and willing to have two doses available for the duration of the study

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Unwilling to consume pork (native/wild type or genetically modified to no longer contain alpha-gal) during Double Blind Food Challenge (DBFC)
  2. Have underlying health conditions suggesting that participants should not undergo an oral food challenge, including conditions that may be exacerbated by oral food challenge or treatment with epinephrine (e.g., history of ischemic heart disease, uncontrolled asthma, or cardiac arrhythmia)
  3. Likely to move away from the study site prior to completion of follow up or do not have regular access to a phone
  4. Have a history of severe anaphylaxis in response to pork or alpha-gal ingestion, defined as neurologic compromise or requiring intubation or cardiovascular compromise defined as myocardial infarction or other cardiovascular events
  5. Unwilling or unable to stop use of medications that may interfere with oral food challenge interpretation, reaction, or treatment for 5 half-lives prior to the challenge (e.g., antihistamines, beta blockers, Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs)
  6. Have used systemic immunomodulators (including biologics and monoclonal antibody therapy) within 6 months before study entry
  7. Have underlying health conditions that may increase the chance of false positive challenges (e.g., inflammatory bowel disease, chronic urticaria, systemic mastocytosis, and mast cell activating syndrome)
  8. Have used systemic within 4 weeks of study entry
  9. Have used any agent within 6 months of study entry
  10. Are on build-up of immunotherapy such as Antigen-based Immunotherapy (AIT), Oral Immunotherapy (OIT), Sublingual Immunotherapy (SLIT), or Epicutaneous Immunotherapy (EPIT)
  11. Have reacted to mammalian products with onset of symptoms within 30 minutes of oral ingestion
  12. Have current, diagnosed, mental illness or current, diagnosed or self-reported drug or alcohol abuse that, in the opinion of the investigator, would interfere with the participant's ability to comply with study requirements
  13. Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant during the course of the study
  14. Have past or current medical problems or findings from physical examination or laboratory testing that are not listed above, which, in the opinion of the investigator, may pose additional risks from participation in the study, may interfere with the participant's ability to comply with study requirements, and/or may impact the quality or interpretation of the data obtained from the study
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(6)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

Informed consent

Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.

You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.

Reproductive potential

Able to have children. For women this usually means from the first period until menopause, unless permanently unable to through surgery; for men, unless permanently sterile. Read who the line is about — participants, women, men, or their partners.

Criteria about it usually ask for contraception during the study and for a time after it.

Contraception

Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.

Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.

Clinically significant

Judged by the study doctor to matter for your health or for the study. It is a doctor’s decision, so ask the study team if you are unsure whether something counts.

Corticosteroids (steroids)

Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.

Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.

Investigational drug or device

A drug or device being studied in a clinical trial.

It may be new, or already approved and being studied for another use, dose or form. Criteria often leave out people who took part in another study of one within a recent period, commonly 30 days or five half-lives.

05

Study design

Phase
Phase 2
Primary purpose
Diagnostic
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Crossover assignment
Masking
Double (Participant, Investigator)
Enrollment
160 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Sequence 1: KO, then WT

    Each participant will serve as their own control and undergo a DBFC to alpha-gal KO pork, followed by a minimum of a 8-day washout period, then a DBFC to WT pork.

    Diagnostic Test: DBFC with 150g of Alpha-gal Knock Out (KO) pork · Diagnostic Test: DBFC with 150g of Wild Type (WT) pork

  • Experimental
    Sequence 2: WT, then KO

    Each participant will serve as their own control and undergo a DBFC to WT pork, followed by a minimum of a 8-day washout period, then a DBFC to alpha-gal KO pork.

    Diagnostic Test: DBFC with 150g of Alpha-gal Knock Out (KO) pork · Diagnostic Test: DBFC with 150g of Wild Type (WT) pork

Interventions

  • Diagnostic testDBFC with 150g of Alpha-gal Knock Out (KO) pork

    Each participant will serve as their own control and ingest both alpha-gal-KO and WT pork on different days, with a minimum of an 8-day washout period between oral food challenges

  • Diagnostic testDBFC with 150g of Wild Type (WT) pork

    Each participant will serve as their own control and ingest both alpha-gal-KO and WT pork on different days, with a minimum of an 8-day washout period between oral food challenges

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Positive Double Blind Food Challenge (DBFC) result to 150 grams of either alpha-gal knockout (KO) pork or wild type (WT) pork.

    A positive challenge will be defined as experiencing symptoms grade 2 or higher on the Consortium for Food Allergy Research (CoFAR) Grading Scale for Systemic Allergic Reactions (scale range from 1 to 5, with higher scores indicating a more severe reaction) within 6 hours of ingestion.

    Time frame: At Visit 1 (within 2 months of screening) or Visit 2 (between 8 and 30 days of Visit 1)

Secondary outcomes

  1. Alpha-gal sub-phenotype as determined by symptoms resulting from Double Blind Food Challenge (DBFC) to wild-type (WT) pork.

    Post-challenge alpha-gal sub-phenotypes as defined by reaction to their first DBFC to WT pork: anaphylaxis, cutaneous-only, or GI-only.

    Time frame: At Visit 1 (within 2 months of screening) or Visit 2 (between 8 and 30 days of Visit 1)

  2. Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale - Irritable Bowel Syndrome (GSRS-IBS) scores in response to 150 grams of Knock Out (KO) or Wild Type (WT) pork at each challenge visit

    Validated patient-reported outcome measures: gastrointestinal symptoms based on GSRS-IBS score (score range from 15 to 105, with higher scores indicating a worse outcome).

    Time frame: At 7 days following completion of Double Blind Food Challenge (DBFC) at Visit 1 (within 2 months of screening) or Visit 2 (between 8 and 30 days of Visit 1)

  3. Urticaria Activity Score (UAS7) in response to 150 grams of Knock Out (KO) or Wild Type (WT) pork at each challenge visit.

    Validated patient-reported outcome measures: urticaria symptoms based on UAS7 score (score range from 0 to 42, with higher scores indicating a worse outcome).

    Time frame: At 7 days following completion of Double Blind Food Challenge (DBFC) at Visit 1 (within 2 months of screening) or Visit 2 (between 8 and 30 days of Visit 1)

07

Study locations

1 of 4 sites recruiting
  • Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute: Department of Pediatrics, Allergy & Immunology
    Little Rock, Arkansas 72202, United States
    Not yet recruiting
  • North Carolina Children's Hospital: Department of Pediatrics, Division of Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology
    Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
    Not yet recruiting
  • Vanderbilt University Medical Center: Division of Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonary Medicine
    Nashville, Tennessee 37232, United States
    Recruiting
  • University of Virginia Health System: Division of Asthma & Immunology
    Charlottesville, Virginia 22908, United States
    Not yet recruiting
    • Jeffrey Wilson, MD · Principal investigator
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Yes — The plan is to share data upon completion of the study in: Immunology Database and Analysis Portal (ImmPort), a long-term archive of clinical and mechanistic data from DAIT-funded grants and contracts.

Time frame: On average, within 24 months after database lock for the trial.

Access criteria: Open access.

Data sharing details ↗ · www.immport.org

09

Updates

1 registry update since Sep 25, 2026
Start date
Sep 15, 2026→Sep 21, 2026 (actual)
Oct 8, 2026
Show all 1 update
  1. Oct 8, 2026
    Start date Sep 15, 2026→Sep 21, 2026 (now actual)

From the registry record's own update history. This site started tracking changes on Sep 25, 2026; for anything earlier, see the record history on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT07611435
Collaborators
Consortium for Food Allergy Research (CoFAR), Allergy & Asthma Statistical and Clinical Coordinating Center: Rho, Inc
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
May 28, 2026
Start date
Sep 21, 2026
Primary completion
Oct 30, 2031 (estimated)
Completion
Oct 30, 2032 (estimated)
Last update
Oct 8, 2026

Study contacts

Leonard Bacharier, M.D.
study chair · Vanderbilt University Medical Center: Division of Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonary Medicine
Rachel Robison, M.D.
study chair · Vanderbilt University Medical Center: Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
Yes
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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