Cincinnati Children’s Joins Consortium of Food Allergy Research
Post Date: March 12, 2024 | Publish Date:
A seven-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will make Cincinnati Children’s the only NIH-funded clinical research center for food allergy in all of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, and one of only 10 centers in the United States.
Amal Assa’ad, MD, associate director of the Division of Allergy and Immunology, will serve as principal investigator on the grant, which will provide $380,000 per year, plus additional funding for clinical trials, to support work as a member of the Consortium of Food Allergy Research (CoFAR).
Assa’ad says possible studies within the consortium include a network-wide clinical trial focused on maintaining acquired tolerance to food allergens after oral immunotherapy, and a center-specific research project investigating how environmental factors influence food allergies.
Though this marks the first time Cincinnati Children’s has been included as a CoFAR clinical research center, the health system has been involved in past CoFAR initiatives. Marc Rothenberg, MD, director of the Division of Allergy and Immunology and co-principal investigator on the grant, previously created a registry of patients with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), conducted successful genetic studies, and reported on manifestations of EoE across the consortium’s sites.
To learn more about our inclusion in CoFAR, read the full announcement in our newsroom.
