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Research & Innovation
It starts with a Q:
For the latest cutting-edge research, innovative collaborations and remarkable discoveries in child health, read stories from across all our areas of study in Q: Advances and Answers in Pediatric Health.
Research at the Allergy and Immunology Center
Our allergy and immunology pediatric specialists are international leaders in allergy research, especially in food allergy. Through our partnership with the University of Colorado School of Medicine, we provide professional education and knowledge advancement through research.
It all starts with a Q:
For the latest cutting-edge research and innovative collaborations in allergy and immunology, read more in Q: Advances and Answers in Pediatric Health.
Allergy and Immunology advancements
Our specialists are on the forefront of evaluating new methods of preventing, diagnosing, managing and treating allergic diseases. Our researchers work to understand risk factors for developing allergic and inflammatory reactions, and then seek new ways to safely regulate those responses.
- David Fleischer, MD, was the lead international investigator for the DBV Technologies PEPITES Epicutaneous Immunotherapy peanut patch trial. This is a groundbreaking study of a non-oral treatment for peanut allergy that was shown to successfully desensitize 4 to 11-year-old children with peanut allergies through their skin.
- Carina Venter, PhD, is an internationally recognized allergy dietitian. She continues to serve as a lead investigator on the longstanding Food Allergy and Intolerance research birth cohort study, which has led to the understanding of how allergic diseases evolve throughout childhood.
- Matthew Greenhawt, MD, works with hospitals across the nation and in Australia to explore the cost-effectiveness of early feeding policies and anaphylaxis management policies to maximize the health benefits of procedures and minimize their costs.
- Our investigators have been leading experts in helping to author new policies to help introduce potentially allergenic solids within the first year of life to help reduce the risk of developing food allergy. Our pediatric allergy experts co-authored the 2017 NIAID Addendum Guidelines on Preventing Peanut Allergy and continue to investigate the health, nutritional and economic benefits related to early introduction.
"My aim is to use my research to help influence health care policy and advocacy within food allergy."David Fleischer, MD
Ongoing allergy and immunology research
Our food allergy program is an international leader in researching food allergy treatment, food allergy quality of life and best practices for the prevention, diagnosis and management of food allergy. Our team members are also active in food allergy healthcare policy and regularly serve as authors on practice management guidelines.
We collaborate with the top centers around the world to help research the latest food allergy treatments, which aim to desensitize allergic children so that they can tolerate up to 1 gram (a few kernels) of peanut, about the size of an accidental bite of something. This transformative research is part of an FDA fast-tracked effort to accelerate the development and approval of new food allergy therapies.
Our groundbreaking drug allergy program seeks to understand the most efficient way to diagnose drug allergy. With a focus on penicillin allergy, our team is investigating which children are low-risk and unlikely to benefit from penicillin allergy testing.
We conduct investigator-initiated and federal grant-funded studies, as well as donor and other sponsor-funded clinical trials for investigational treatments. We have a variety of ongoing allergy research studies including:
- Epicutaneous immunotherapy for the treatment of milk allergy
- Determining tradeoffs among health benefits, adverse events and resource use associated with food allergy treatment
- Understanding the outcomes of oral food challenges
- Understanding the effects of oral food challenges on food allergy quality of life
- Understanding maternal and early life influences, particularly nutritional factors, on the development of allergic diseases
What our allergy and immunology research means for kids
Our research aims to be practical, yet cutting edge, while maintaining a focus on helping our patients and their families. We want to help prevent and treat allergies, but also maximize the quality of our patients' and families' lives while they live with food allergy.
Epicutaneous peanut allergy immunotherapy vs. placebo
Despite the severity and relative prevalence of peanut allergy, no approved treatments exist. In this peanut allergy trial, our researchers assessed the efficacy and adverse events of peanut allergy immunotherapy through a peanut patch among peanut-allergic children. They found that daily treatment with a peanut patch containing 250 micrograms of peanut protein resulted in a 21.7% difference between the percentage of participants reaching the pre-specified dose at which reaction was provoked compared to the placebo group at 12 months. While this difference was statistically significant, it did not meet the pre-specified lower bound of the confidence interval to obtain a positive trial result. (No thresholds as to the significance of using this lower boundary as a measure of clinical significance have been set to help guide food allergy immunotherapy.) Adverse events were common but consisted mostly of local skin reactions. Adherence to the peanut patch was high at 98.5%. The authors argue that the effectiveness, adverse events and adherence of epicutaneous therapy must be weighed against alternative types of peanut allergy trials, such as oral immunotherapy.
IL2RB mutation and T and NK cell-driven immune dysregulation
Researchers are increasingly recognizing that the onset of autoimmunity in infants signals the development of primary immunodeficiency disorders. Interleukin-2 (IL-2) is an immunoregulatory cytokine that is essential for regulation of immune responses and maintenance of immune tolerance. The IL-2 receptor (IL-2R) is made up of α (IL-2R α), β (IL-2Rβ) and γ (IL-2R γ) chains. Defects in IL-2Rα and IL-2Rγ and their downstream signaling effectors cause known primary immunodeficiency disorders.
Researchers from the Allergy and Immunology Center, Digestive Health Institute and Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, in collaboration with researchers from other institutions, report on the first human defect in IL-2Rβ. Researchers discovered the homozygous IL2RB mutation in two infant siblings that manifested as multisystem autoimmunity and susceptibility to CMV infection. The IL2RB mutation reveals previously unappreciated insights into IL-2/15 signaling and NK cell biology.
Read our article “A novel human IL2RB mutation results in T and NK cell-driven immune dysregulation”
Contact us
Phone: 720-777-8886
Email: foodallergy.research@childrenscolorado.org
