Mount Sinai Launches $7.2M NIH-Funded Center to Advance Personalized Peanut Allergy Treatments
核心洞察
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has received a five-year, $7.2 million NIAID grant to establish the INROADS center focused on personalized treatment strategies for peanut allergy (搜索).
INROADS aims to identify biological mechanisms and biomarkers that predict which patients are most likely to benefit from desensitization therapies, including peanut oral immunotherapy and omalizumab.
The center includes two major research projects—MICRO-TRACK and SPADE—leveraging advanced immune profiling, transcriptomics, and machine learning to uncover molecular signatures of treatment success.
Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have been awarded a five-year, $7.2 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to establish a new Asthma and Allergic Diseases Cooperative Research Center dedicated to advancing personalized treatment strategies for peanut allergy (搜索). The initiative, known as Immunologic Trajectories of Peanut Desensitization (INROADS), will investigate the biological mechanisms driving peanut allergy desensitization and identify biomarkers to predict which patients are most likely to benefit from treatment.
Peanut allergy (搜索) affects nearly 2% of adults and up to 5% of children in some regions of the United States, and its prevalence has tripled in recent decades, making it one of the most common and potentially life-threatening food allergies. Although recently approved therapies—including peanut oral immunotherapy (OIT) and the anti-IgE (搜索) medication omalizumab (Xolair; Genentech, Novartis)—have improved treatment options, clinicians currently have no reliable way to predict treatment response or understand why therapies are effective for some patients but not others.
"Mount Sinai has played a leading role in developing and advancing therapies that have transformed care for patients with peanut allergy (搜索). This new center allows us to take the next critical step toward precision medicine by identifying the immune and molecular pathways that determine treatment success," said Supinda Bunyavanich, MD, MPH, MPhil, Contact Principal Investigator of INROADS and Deputy Director of the Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital. "Our goal is to help ensure that every patient receives the therapy most likely to benefit them."
Two Major Research Projects
The INROADS center is structured around two core research projects. MICRO-TRACK (Mapping Immune Cell Response Outcomes and Trajectories in a Peanut Allergy (搜索) Cohort), led by Erik Wambre, PhD, will use advanced immune profiling technologies, allergen-specific T cell studies, and laboratory models to identify biological markers that predict treatment response and reveal mechanisms of immune regulation during desensitization. The project will define the cellular and systemic immune trajectories underlying successful peanut desensitization by comparing immunologic mechanisms and treatment responses induced by peanut OIT and omalizumab.
SPADE (Signatures and Classifiers of Peanut Desensitization), led by Bunyavanich, will apply transcriptomics and machine learning approaches to uncover molecular signatures associated with successful desensitization and develop predictive tools that may help guide clinical decision-making. "SPADE will apply high-dimensional molecular assays and machine learning to deepen mechanistic understanding of peanut desensitization and develop and test biomarkers for peanut allergy (搜索) treatment," Bunyavanich explained.
Three Integrated Cores
Supporting these projects are three integrated cores. The PATHWAYS Clinical Core, led by Scott H. Sicherer, MD, Multiple Principal Investigator of INROADS and Director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, will provide clinical data and biological samples from patients undergoing oral food challenge testing before and after desensitization therapies. These medically supervised gradual feedings identify a threshold of reactivity that helps determine the best treatment approach and assess treatment effectiveness approximately one year into therapy.
"It would be great to forego these time-consuming tests that trigger allergic reactions and to have simple tests to predict the best personalized approaches and understand expectations of outcomes," said Sicherer.
The Administrative Core, led by Bunyavanich, will coordinate scientific activities, center operations, and collaborations across the national Asthma and Allergic Diseases Cooperative Research Center network. The Data Stewardship Core, also led by Bunyavanich, will oversee biospecimen management, data integration, and sharing of research resources with the broader scientific community.
A Multidisciplinary Approach
The INROADS center brings together experts in allergy, immunology, omics, artificial intelligence, computational biology, and clinical research from across Mount Sinai. "Food allergy is a complex condition influenced by so many factors. Studying food allergy from different perspectives and integrating these distinct views will enable us to gain deeper and more comprehensive understandings of food allergy," said Bunyavanich.
Faculty participating in the center include Erik Wambre, PhD; Julie Wang, MD; Pei Wang, PhD; Kristin Beaumont, PhD; and Seunghee Kim-Schulze, PhD, representing the Departments of Pediatrics, Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Immunology and Immunotherapy, and related research programs.
"Families living with peanut allergy (搜索) face constant uncertainty and vigilance," said Sicherer. "The discoveries generated through this center have the potential to fundamentally improve how we deliver desensitization therapies, making them more personalized, more effective, and ultimately more accessible for patients and families."
By combining detailed clinical information with comprehensive immune and molecular analyses, investigators aim to create one of the most robust datasets ever assembled for peanut allergy (搜索) desensitization research. These data will be made publicly available to accelerate discovery and collaboration across the field. The insights gained from INROADS may not only improve outcomes for peanut allergy but also inform the treatment of other food allergies and allergic diseases, with data expected to continue driving discoveries and accelerating precision medicine beyond the lifetime of the grant.