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Pioneering immunotherapy for food allergy: clinical outcomes and modulation of the immune response

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Abstract

There is no approved therapy for food allergies, which affect 12 million people in the United States and millions more worldwide. In the last few years, our research team at Duke has begun to develop protocols to treat peanut and other food allergies. Two distinct therapies are being developed. Oral immunotherapy (OIT), which relies on ingestion of increasing amounts of the allergenic food, has been used to successfully desensitize more than 50 peanut allergic subjects. Sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) involves placing small quantities of peanut allergens under the tongue and has shown promise in our initial placebo-controlled clinical trial. Immunologic changes associated with OIT and SLIT include reduction in mast cell reactivity as determined by skin prick test size, decreased basophil responses, decreased specific-IgE, increased IgG4, and induction of regulatory T cells. Development of these immunotherapy strategies has generated much excitement in the food allergy community; however, further studies are needed before these approaches are ready for clinical use.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the subjects and their families for their dedication to the clinical studies at Duke. We would also like to thank the various funding agencies that made this research possible: National Institutes of Health, Food Allergy Initiative, Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, Wallace Research Foundation, Thrasher Research Fund, and National Peanut Board.

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  1. Department of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, Duke University Medical Center, DUMC Box 2644, Durham, NC, 27710, USA

    Mike Kulis, Brian P. Vickery & A. Wesley Burks

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  1. Mike Kulis
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  2. Brian P. Vickery
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  3. A. Wesley Burks
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Correspondence to Mike Kulis.

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Mike Kulis, Brian P. Vickery contributed equally to this manuscript.

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Kulis, M., Vickery, B.P. & Burks, A.W. Pioneering immunotherapy for food allergy: clinical outcomes and modulation of the immune response. Immunol Res 49, 216–226 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12026-010-8183-9

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