Malaghan Institute of Medical Research

How the Malaghan Institute is tackling Asthma & Food Allergy

The treatment of immune-mediated diseases of excessive immune activation, such as asthma and allergy, usually involves the use of non-specific immune suppressive agents such as corticosteroids. Although effective at inhibiting the undesired immune response to allergens, these treatments are non-specific in their mechanism of action and can leave patients more susceptible to common infections such as influenza.

Understanding the signals that trigger the initiation of allergic responses is critical for the identification of specific treatments that selectively suppress only the allergic immune response. Surprisingly, little is known about these signals but scientists at the Malaghan Institute hope to change this by using allergic murine models, immunological assays and structure/function analyses to generate much needed information in this poorly understood field.

The majority of the Institute's asthma and allergy research is undertaken in Prof Graham Le Gros' Asthma & Allergic Diseases Research Group.  A postdoctoral research fellow in this group, Dr Elizabeth Forbes-Blom, specialises in the study of food allergy and is currently developing unique laboratory models for understanding the early events in the allergic immune response.  Other senior research group leaders involved in asthma and allergy research at the Malaghan Institute include Prof Franca Ronchese, Dr Bridget Stocker and Dr Jacquie Harper.

Important outcomes of this work will be the development of generally applicable vaccines and therapies for the treatment of individuals with established disease, and the identification of improved immunological markers for monitoring human airway inflammation and allergy.