Skip to content

Food Allergy Research Funded at National Jewish Health


DENVER —

National Jewish Health researchers will continue seeking treatments to cure and prevent food allergies as part of the Consortium of Food Allergy Research (CoFAR), thanks to $42.7 million in funding announced recently by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. National Jewish Health is one of seven research groups in CoFAR, the only one in Colorado. 
 

Doctor feeding child patient with a spoon

COFAR has been continuously funded since 2005. The current funding will support research for seven more years, through 2024. Previous research has demonstrated clinical benefit of immunotherapy for egg and peanut allergies. Researchers continue to seek optimal doses and delivery vehicles.

The National Jewish Health team is led by Donald Leung, MD, PhD, head of pediatric allergy & clinical immunology. Upcoming trials will include evaluation of oral immunotherapy in younger children. Researchers also plan trials to understand mechanisms involved in different types of food allergy and to introduce new forms of treatment for food allergy. Researchers at National Jewish are also studying the skin barrier of patients with atopic dermatitis to learn if cracks in their skin that allow food particles from the environment to enter the body might be a cause of food allergies.

National Jewish Health is the leading respiratory hospital in the nation. Founded 125 years ago as a nonprofit hospital, National Jewish Health today is the only facility in the world dedicated exclusively to groundbreaking medical research and treatment of children and adults with respiratory, cardiac, immune and related disorders. Patients and families come to National Jewish Health from around the world to receive cutting-edge, comprehensive, coordinated care. To learn more, visit the media resources page.


We have many faculty members, from bench scientists to clinicians, who can speak on almost any aspect of respiratory, immune, cardiac and gastrointestinal disease as well as lung cancer and basic immunology.


Our team is available to arrange interviews, discuss events and story ideas.