# Towards the identification of biomarkers for pediatric milk allergy

> **NIH NIH U19** · LA JOLLA INSTITUTE FOR IMMUNOLOGY · 2021 · $355,214

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Cow’s milk allergy is among the most common pediatric food allergies, affecting about 2% of young children in
the United States 1, 2, and its prevalence continues to increase 3. Although milk allergy is commonly outgrown
later in life, it still poses a great health risk as avoidance of all dairy-containing products is difficult and
accidental ingestion is common. Cow’s milk allergic reactions can be very severe, and are estimated to be
responsible for up to 13% of fatal food-induced anaphylaxis 4. Diagnosis of milk allergy is challenging; tests
relying on detection of milk allergen-specific IgE antibodies have a high rate of false positives, and a non-
negligible rate of false negatives. Food challenges provide the most accurate diagnostic tool in the clinic, but
require significant resources and highly trained staff to be carried out with acceptable risk, which is not always
available outside of well-controlled research settings. To improve diagnostics of milk and other food allergies,
the underlying disease mechanisms need to be better understood. In addition, the rate at which milk allergy is
outgrown is patient dependent and in some cases, this allergy is still present in adulthood. Aside from milk-
specific IgE titers, which are not reliably accurate in predicting food challenge outcomes, there are no available
biomarkers to assess if a patient will outgrow their allergy in coming months and when they can begin to safely
ingest dairy or raw milk. As CD4 T cells are known to play a key role in mediating food allergy 5, our central
hypothesis is that studying the frequency and phenotype of milk allergen-specific T cells in cohorts with
different disease manifestations will define molecular markers of disease status and progression to tolerance,
and this information could be utilized for developing improved and new diagnostic tests. Accordingly, we
propose to comprehensively define T cell epitopes from milk allergens (Aim 1) and use these as reagents to
determine the phenotype of antigen-specific T cells from donors with different clinical manifestations (Aim 2),
as well as track the longitudinal development of antigen-specific T cells during the disease course (Aim 3). By
comparing and contrasting phenotypic markers of milk allergen-specific T cells identified in this project with
fungal, cockroach and mouse allergen-specific T cells defined in Projects 1 and 3, we will determine
pathogenic features of allergen-specific T cells that are either specific to milk (or more broadly food) allergies
or shared across other allergens.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10083710
- **Project number:** 5U19AI135731-04
- **Recipient organization:** LA JOLLA INSTITUTE FOR IMMUNOLOGY
- **Principal Investigator:** Bjoern Peters
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $355,214
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-01-01 → 2022-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10083710

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10083710, Towards the identification of biomarkers for pediatric milk allergy (5U19AI135731-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10083710. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*