DEVELOPMENT OF ALLERGY-PREVENTIVE NOSE DROPS FOR USE IN EARLY INFANCY

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The objective is to develop an allergy preventive treatment. We have observed that newborn human infants naturally exposed to certain immuno-stimulating bacterial products have not developed food allergy. In these infants, we also noted expansion of regulatory T cells. Allergy is a major chronic disease of children and adolescents in Western societies, affecting up to one third of all children. Allergies are a form of dysregulation of the immune system which many believe is due to lack of stimulation by microbes in infancy. If an allergy preventive method can be developed, the positive health consequences are enormous.