This contract supports two distinct objectives. The first objective is to support core facilities that will use innovative isolation and purification techniques to identify novel allergens associated with human diseases, such as asthma, allergic rhinitis and food allergy, from various sources. The second objective is to identify and characterize peptides containing T cell epitopes that induce anergy in allergen-specific effector T cells, or activate allergen-specific regulatory T cells. The major goals of this initiative are to identify novel allergens using innovative purification methods, and to generate a set of defined peptides that regulate the function of allergen-specific effector and regulatory T cells. This research may lead to novel reagents for the use of vaccine development.
