Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Asthma and allergic diseases affect millions of Canadians and cost Canadian society in global health and cost of healthcare, hospitalizations and general social impact. An array of therapies is available, but efforts are lacking in designing preventative measures early in life. We previously demonstrated that babies at high risk of developing allergic diseases and asthma have altered cord blood-derived hemopoietic progenitor cell phenotypes and function; these cord blood characteristics could be used to attempt to predict future health outcomes. In our present study, we used the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) study (www.canadianchildstudy.ca), a national, multi-centered, longitudinal, general population-based birth cohort a prospective birth cohort. Enrolment was completed in 2012 of 3,624 children and their parents. CHILD is one of very few studies in the world, which have collected information about the children prior to and immediately after birth, and, followed them to assess environmental exposures and detailed phenotypes, including characterisation of wheeze, multiple allergic traits and allergic sensitisation, from birth to 5 years. We profiled CHILD subjects' cord blood cells for levels of pertinent proteins of the immune system (ability of the human body to fight infections and environmental insults). We found significant differences in certain stem cell populations in the cord blood of the CHILD subjects, showing a distinct pattern which can be found at birth, and is associated with development of allergies at one year of age.