‘Turning off’ allergies

A party invitation or a close encounter with peanuts or pollen can be daunting for anxious parents whose children have severe allergies or asthma.

The constant vigilance required can be exhausting.

It is little wonder news of progress towards a single treatment giving life-long protection has been celebrated around the world.

The reason treating allergies and asthma is such a challenge is that immune T-cells develop a ‘memory’ of the allergen protein and become very resistant to treatments.

Each time the T-cells recognise the allergen, the response is amplified.

When these symptoms become severe, allergies can be life-threatening.

At the UQ Diamantina Institute, a research team led by Associate Professor Ray Steptoe, has succeeded in turning off the immune response by effectively ‘wiping the memory’ of these T-cells with gene therapy.

This desensitises or resets the immune system so that it tolerates the allergen.

As Dr Steptoe explains, his team takes blood stem cells, inserts a gene that regulates the allergen protein, and injects that into an animal subject.

“Those engineered cells produce new blood cells that express the protein and target specific immune cells – ‘turning off’ the allergic response.”

Dr Ray Steptoe

The research so far has focused on an experimental asthma allergen.

But it has the potential to be applied to treat severe allergies, such as peanuts, insect venom and shellfish.

The findings are subject to further preclinical investigation, with the next step being to replicate results using human cells in the laboratory.

The Asthma Foundation is among the supporters of the research.

Dr Steptoe says the ultimate goal would be to develop a single injected gene therapy – replacing the short-term treatments that merely target allergy symptoms with varying degrees of effectiveness.

“We haven’t quite got the technique to that point, so we are working on making it simpler and safer,” Dr Steptoe says.

“The target population might be those individuals who have severe asthma or potentially lethal food allergies, rather than someone with milder symptoms.”

The Asthma Foundation, Dr Steptoe and his team look forward to the day when a safe single treatment is available - as do the many of us impacted by allergy and asthma.

Dr Steptoe discusses his research on a gene therapy for severe allergies.


This story is featured in the Summer 2017 edition of UQMedicine Magazine. View the latest edition here. Or to listen, watch, or read more stories from UQ’s Faculty of Medicine visit our content hub, MayneStream.