The AADC at Northwestern University is an expanding program which now is composed of the Sections of Allergy-immunology' Occupational Medicine and Pulmonary Medicine of the Department of Medicine and the Division of Allergy of the Department of Pediatrics. Projects focus on immunologic disease particularly of the immediate-type and with a major emphasis on airway diseases. Occupational and environmental diseases due to chemicals acting as antigens (Project I) and allergic aspergillosis (Project II) are model systems of immunologic airway diseases. Allergy to laboratory animals (Project VII) is the study of epidemiology and immunology of these occupational problems. Studies of an improved form of allergen immunotherapy are extended in Project IV. Mechanisms of IgE mediated airway reactions are studied in 3 projects. These include investigations using animal models relevant to occupational immunologic lung disease (Project III), studies of important mediators including leukotrienes and platelet activating factor (Project VI) and studies of the cells which release or produce the mediators which may be involved in eliciting immediate-type allergic responses (Project V). Thus these studies focus on major basic and clinical aspects of important allergic diseases including asthma.
