Researchers eye new weapon in allergy war

It's allergy season, that dreaded time of year where requisite rounds of "bless you" and "gesundheit" follow constant sneezing among office pods and co-workers.

Commercials for the latest allergy medication pop up more often on television, and new allergy products promise relief from itchy, watery eyes and potential deadly reactions that come with allergies.

But if scientists at Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason are successful, someday allergies could be eliminated altogether.

Using a $5.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease, Drs. William Kwok and David Robinson of the Virginia Mason Asthma and Allergy Clinic are studying cells from people allergic to such things as cat dander, tree and grass pollen, peanuts and mold.

In an attempt to find better and faster ways to diagnose allergies, they are using tetramers, artificial molecules with four arms that can seek out and latch on to specific targets in the blood.

Tetramers were developed at the Benaroya Research Institute and are used worldwide to help improve the diagnoses and treatment of some of the world's most difficult diseases.

The scientists at Benaroya manipulate the tetramers to look like specific allergens. They stick to blood cells and show which allergen a person is reacting to.

Finding one cell in a drop of blood that contains a million cells is beyond finding a needle in a haystack, said Jack Nagan, executive director of Benaroya Research Institute and vice president of research at Virginia Mason. The best way to find the needle is with a big magnet, he said. The tetramer is that magnet.

Using a large machine called a flow cytometer, the blood is separated into droplets. Laser beams identify the allergy-causing cells because there's a tetramer locked onto it.

"Then you can separate your needles from your hay," Nagan said. "Once separated, you can tell immediately what a person is allergic to."

Researchers hope this can eliminate the painful prick tests and the process of elimination that currently diagnoses most people's allergies.

"From a basic science standpoint, being able to identify what the T-cell (an immune system cell) recognizes in the allergen is a fundamental step in the allergic immune response that we have not been able to define before," Robinson said. "This will potentially allow researchers to tease apart fine details of the allergic immune response, and this could lead to other treatment approaches that have not yet even been conceived."

For example, researchers maybe can figure out what gene in a person's body is making the blueprint for the allergen cell and turn it off -- eliminating allergies altogether.

The researchers also want to develop vaccines that use a small fragment of the allergen, making it safer; current allergy shots include the whole allergen to reduce the symptoms and can cause dangerous reactions in some people.

They also hope to learn how to change the immune system's tolerance for allergies without using the actual allergen.

How soon any of the research would actually be of practical value to allergy sufferers is unknown.

"We would like to develop a more individualized, specific treatment that will reduce any risks using the whole allergen," Kwok said. "This grant gives us an opportunity to make a significant difference for people who suffer from allergies and elevate their options for care."