Why some children develop food allergy while others do not remains an important unanswered question. A major new US study will investigate whether exposure to food allergens, microbes and microbial products in the home during early life helps shape that risk.
Researchers at the UNC School of Medicine have been awarded a five-year, US$7.07 million grant from the US National Institutes of Health for a detailed analysis that will include household dust collected as part of the Systems Biology of Early Atopy (SUNBEAM) birth cohort. SUNBEAM is a large, multicentre study following children from before birth to three years of age, with a planned cohort of 2,500 infants and extensive collection of environmental and biological samples.
The new study will examine dust collected before birth and during the first months of life, measuring food allergens alongside microbial-derived substances and characterising the microbial communities present. Researchers will then investigate whether particular exposures, or combinations of exposures, are associated with food sensitisation and allergy at five and 12 months.
Of particular interest is the possibility that non-oral exposure to food allergens in the home may contribute to sensitisation, with microbial exposures potentially modifying that risk. The prospective SUNBEAM cohort should allow researchers to examine these exposures before food allergy develops, potentially providing new insights into the complex interaction between our early environment and the developing immune system.
Visit The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) website for further details of the funding announcement.
