Food allergy pioneer to head new research centre

Dr. Kari Nadeau, one of North America’s foremost experts in adult and pediatric allergy, will lead the new Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research to be established at Stanford University in California.

A US $24 million grant from technology billionaire Sean Parker, for whom the new institute is named, as well as donations from Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and other philanthropic leaders, will support the development of the new interdisciplinary and interdependent allergy research center. Parker, co-founder of the Napster file-sharing service and Facebook’s founding president, suffers from life-threatening food allergies and asthma.

Dr. Nadeau has pioneered research that de-sensitizes the immune system by gradually exposing patients to incremental doses of a food allergen over time—a treatment called oral immunotherapy. She leads translational research and clinical studies at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and the Stanford University School of Medicine, and currently directs the Stanford Alliance for Food Allergy Research (SAFAR) program.

In June 2014, AllerGen NCE and Dr. Nadeau announced the launch of a joint award that will allow a young Canadian scientist (MD or PhD) with an interest in developing new and safe therapies for food allergies to work with Dr. Nadeau at Stanford University. Contact AllerGen NCE for more information.