One shot at allergy

In a JCI Insight study, a cellular and gene therapy for allergy cured mice with a single dose, representing a new tolerizing approach to treat human allergy and other autoimmune diseases. Although the therapy could replace the lengthy regimens that plague specific immunotherapies for allergy, the questions is whether this approach will translate better to humans than other antigen-specific platforms.

Standard strategies in allergy involve suppressing the overactive immune response without regard to the antigen, for example using corticosteroids and antihistamines. The only proven form of antigen-specific therapy is allergen-specific immunotherapy (AIT) widely known as “allergy shots.” Recently, researchers and drug developers have explored ways to induce tolerance to a specific antigen using modified AIT protocols with purified antigen, plasmid-encoding antigens and protocols to induce allergen-specific Tregs. ...