NACE food allergy experts win grants to drive future research

Published
Monday, October 14, 2024 - 9:00 AM

Three National Allergy Centre of Excellence (NACE) researchers have been awarded grants to advance food allergy research.

Dr Sarah Ashley, who is a member of the NACE Food Allergy Stream Advisory Group, Dr Tim Brettig, NACE Postdoctoral Fellow and Medical Lead of the ADAPT OIT Program, and Dr Jacqueline Loprete, who has worked with the NACE Evidence and Translation Pillar.

Dr Sarah Ashley receives Ramaciotti Health Investment Grant

Dr Sarah AshleyMurdoch Children's Research Institute's (MCRI) Dr Sarah Ashley has secured funding for her project which aims to improve treatment outcomes for children with food allergies.

Dr Ashley was awarded the $95,000 Ramaciotti Health Investment Grant to help understand why some children with food allergies don't achieve remission and further explore a treatment that could allow them to live allergy free.

Food allergy is a significant public health burden affecting 10 per cent of one-year-olds in Melbourne, which is the highest reported prevalence globally.

Two treatments have been approved overseas which can induce desensitisation, a treatment that makes a person less allergic and protects them from accidental reactions.

However, unlike remission which allows a child to eat the allergen freely, desensitised children must continue maintenance treatment indefinitely and doesn't help improve quality of life.

"Treatments are in development that could allow allergic children to live allergy free, but not all who receive these treatments will achieve this,” Dr Ashley said. "Some children fall back into active allergy once treatment is discontinued, but it is not understood why this happens."

To better understand the underlying immunological processes, Dr Ashley and her team will use blood samples from children in a previous MCRI study who gained desensitisation without remission.

The researchers will examine the immune changes that caused treatment to fail to gain better insights into what can lead to allergy remission.

"Results from this trial could translate into meaningful outcomes for children and their families, offering them a path to remission and a life free from the burden of severe food allergies," Dr Ashley said.

Find out more about Dr Ashley's allergy research.

Dr Tim Brettig wins AIFA DBV Technologies Food Allergy Research Grant 

Research team: Prof Kirsten Perrett, A/Prof Rachel Peters, Dr Vicki McWilliam (MCRI) 

Dr Tim BrettigNut allergy occurs in up to three per cent of Australian children. While most reactions are mild, peanuts and tree nuts, especially cashews, are a common cause of anaphylaxis.

Dr Brettig was awarded a $15,000 Allergy and Immunology Foundation of Australasia (AIFA) Grant to analyse the outcomes of MCRI’s LMNOP (low-dose multiple nut oral immunotherapy program) pilot trial. The pragmatic randomised controlled trial investigated low dose multi-nut oral immunotherapy versus standard care to treat multi-nut allergies in young children.

“The outcomes of this study will provide crucial evidence for the use of OIT in babies with multiple-nut allergies and, if successful, could not only reduce healthcare costs, but also be life-changing for these children, and their families.”

Dr Brettig, is also the Medical Lead of the ADAPT OIT Program – with 10 paediatric tertiary hospitals partnering with the National Allergy Centre of Excellence (NACE) to offer peanut oral immunotherapy to eligible babies under a new standardised model of care.

“As an expansion of the NACE ADAPT OIT Program, I hope to determine whether Australian infants with multiple-food allergy could also be treated with multiple-nut OIT,” he said.

Dr Brettig was a Centre for Food Allergy Research (CFAR) PhD Scholar and is now a NACE Postdoctoral Fellow. Both national research bodies are hosted at MCRI to help accelerate allergic disease research across Australia.

Find out more about Dr Tim Brettig's research.

Dr Jacqueline Loprete awarded AIFA Professor Ann Kupa Food Allergy Research Grant

Research team: Prof Andrew Carr, Dr Winnie Tong, Ms Robyn Richardson, Mr Jonathan Montemayor, Mr Jamie Rogers, Dr Karran Pathmanandavel (St Vincent’s Hospital)

Dr Jacqueline LopreteDr Loprete was awarded the $20,000 AFIA Grant for her project titled, Rapid Omalizumab and Peanut Immunotherapy in Adults with Peanut Allergy: OPAL 2. 

Peanut is one of the most frequent causes of food allergy in Australia, affecting one in 100 adults. Peanut allergy also affects approximately three per cent of children. Given that only 20 per cent of children will grow out of their peanut allergy, it follows that the proportion of adults living with peanut allergy will only increase over time.

The recently completed Combining Peanut Oral Immunotherapy and Omalizumab in Adults with Peanut Allergy (OPAL) Study was an Australian-first, prospective, single-arm study. It recruited adults who reacted to less than one peanut kernel (300mg of peanut protein). OPAL evaluated the usefulness of omalizumab, a medication targeted against the IgE protein responsible for triggering allergic reactions, plus peanut immunotherapy.

The primary aim of Dr Loprete's new study is to assess if a rapid protocol of Omalizumab and peanut immunotherapy has similar efficacy and safety as the established OPAL protocol. 

Her team also aims to assess the incidence and severity of reactions to a peanut challenge after 36 weeks of maintenance oral peanut immunotherapy, the frequency and severity of accidental peanut exposure, changes in quality-of-life markers in people undergoing peanut immunotherapy, changes in immunological markers in individuals undergoing immunotherapy, and to compare these outcomes to the results of the OPAL study.

Read more about Dr Loprete's research.

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