Grant: Operating Grant

Allergic diseases, including hayfever, food allergies and asthma, are increasing worldwide and sufferers of either of these airways diseases can become very ill. It is now clear that there is an inflammatory basis for these conditions in which specific white blood cells (eosinophils, basophils, and mast cells) are abundant. The reasons for variability among individuals to develop or not develop allergies and asthma, remain unclear. Evidence directly implicating altered production of white blood cells, derived from mother ("stem") cells in the bone marrow, in ongoing allergic inflammation and disease pathogenesis has been well established, resulting in the "bone marrow hypothesis" of allergy and asthma, pioneered by the applicant. This proposal aims to continue to investigate the roles that blood stem cells play in determining the development of allergy and asthma in early infancy and childhood, based on several studies already conducted on mothers and their babies over the past few years, showing that there are differences in numbers and types of blood stem cells at birth in the cord blood, between infants at high risk (whose parents are allergic) versus those at low risk (whose parents are not allergic) for the development of allergy and asthma. The cellular, molecular and genetic bases for these differences will be carefully explored, using novel tests and techniques developed by the applicant. Applying these methods to samples from a recently launched national birth cohort study will add important information on predicting, at birth, which babies will go on to develop allergies and asthma in the first years of life.