Millions to be spent on food allergy research

A new US$29.9 million grant provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US will provide continued funding for the Consortium of Food Allergy Research. With this funding, the Consortium will continue to work on new approaches to prevent and treat food allergies and also expand in scope to include research on the genetic causes underlying food allergy and studies of food allergy-associated eosinophilic gastrointestinal diseases.

The Consortium, led by Dr. Hugh Sampson, was established in 2005 by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the NIH, with five clinical sites located at the Mount Sinai Medical Center; Duke University Medical Center; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore; National Jewish Health, and University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. With the new funding, two additional research groups, from the Cincinnati Children's Medical Center Hospital and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, will join the Consortium.

Since its establishment, the Consortium's investigators have initiated three clinical trials based on oral immunotherapy for peanut and egg allergy. They have also begun an observational study to determine what factors correlate with allergy continuing or resolving. More than 500 infants, ages 3 to 15 months, with known egg or milk allergy are enrolled in the latter study. Each of these studies will continue under the new funding, and a new clinical trial to treat peanut allergy, using peanut protein that will be applied on the skin, will also be initiated with the latest funding.

For more information can be found at the NIAID Food Allergy Web portal.