Physician Investigator (Cl) Pediatric Allergy Group, Mass General Research Institute

Associate Professor of Pediatrics Harvard Medical School

Pediatrician Pediatrics-Pediatric Allergy & Immunology, Massachusetts General Hospital

Research Staff Medicine-Non-Clinical, Massachusetts General Hospital

MD NYU School of Medicine 1998

allergens; allergies; antigens plant; arachis hypogaea; basophils; desensitization immunologic; food allergies; food hypersensitivity; ige diversity; immunoglobulin e; microbiome; milk hypersensitivity; peanut hypersensitivity; pediatric allergies; polychromatic flow cytometry; regulatory t cells; t cells

The Shreffler laboratory focuses on the characterization of cellular and humoral immune response to dietary antigens and the mechanisms of allergen-induced Th2 sensitization and oral tolerance. Areas of active investigation include 1) the mechanisms of allergenic dendritic cell (DC) activation by allergens and the DC signals that induce Th2 differentiation; 2) the role of regulatory T cells in natural and immunotherapy-induced oral tolerance; 3) the role of IgE diversity and basophil activation and their regulation in both the effector response and in adaptive immune deviation in the context of food allergy and asthma. We primarily work with human samples, often in conjunction with clinical interventional or observational studies, to interrogate both the innate and adaptive immune responses to major dietary and aeroallergens.

Working together with numerous collaborators including from the Consortium for Food Allergy Research , the Inner City Asthma Consortium and our own newly established Food Allergy Center at MGH, we are adapting the use of polychromatic flow cytometry, peptide microarray-based humoral immune profiling and systems biology approaches to uniquely characterize the phenotype and function of allergen-specific T and B cell responses and the regulations of effector cells in pediatric food allergy and asthma.

Also important is the effort to understand why some food proteins are potent allergens. In other words, what are the mechanisms that influence early immune fate decisions to allergens and the intrinsic properties of those allergens that facilitate an allergic response. We are studying this in human and murine model systems.