CFAR PhD Scholars win grants for future allergy research

Published

Monday, October 14, 2024 - 8:00 AM

Three Centre for Food Allergy Research (CFAR) former PhD Scholars have been awarded grants to help advance research into childhood food allergies and insect allergies.

Dr Sarah Ashley receives Ramaciotti Health Investment Grant

Murdoch 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) 

Nut 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 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 Shaymaviswanathan Karnaneedi receives AIFA Early Career and New Researcher Grant

Research Team: Prof Andreas Lopata (James Cook University), Prof Sheryl van Nunen OAM (The University of Sydney), A/Prof Graham Mackay (The University of Melbourne)

Australia has a high prevalence of shellfish food allergy as well as house dust mite allergy, however, no studies have demonstrated the level of risk faced by consumers with these allergies when consuming edible insects.

In this study, Dr Karnaneedi's team plan to first isolate the proteins from crickets and mealworms that can cause cross-allergy in shellfish - and HDM-allergic individuals. Following this, to demonstrate true clinical allergy, they plan to study the capacity of two diagnostic methods that utilise immune cells that mimic clinical allergy in shellfish - and HDM-allergic individuals.

These methods - known as the “basophil activation test” (BAT) and “mast cell activation test” (MAT) - have the potential to accurately diagnose edible insect food allergy without the need for subsequent skin prick tests (SPT) or oral food challenge (OFC).

Find out more about Dr Karnaneedi's research.

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