Subproject 3 - Early priming of allergic diseases

The aim of this subproject is to define a molecular allergy score that allows an early in life prediction of a later allergy risk. There is no reliable prediction for the development of childhood allergies available up to date. The development of this novel “risk score" for children at risk for allergy development at a young age 
can be used for:

     1. prediction

     2. prevention

     3. better treatment of disease early in life

The individual child or patient will profit from a more specific prediction or treatment regimen.

Primary goal of this project is to develop an “allergy score" for children at risk for allergy development which can be used for prediction, prevention and better treatment of disease early in life. To achieve this, we will identify the mechanisms involved in early priming and development of different allergic diseases.

We hypothesize,

• that subgroups of children at risk of developing allergic diseases can be defined early in life (at birth)
• that the score will identify phenotypes of childhood allergies which will show specific pathomechanistic features at school-age.

In the first step: Both the genetic predisposition and immune signature will be used to predict allergy development in different birth cohort studies from early to later childhood and adolescence.

In a second step: During immune maturation, children with manifestation of allergic diseases (AD and asthma) will be evaluated for the identical genetic, epigenetic and immune signature, involving inflammasome, innate and T cell regulation as critical mechanism for disease development.

Finally, as replication, children will be selected based on this risk score and prospectively assessed for disease development.

We have chosen a non- interventional prospective study design to define these groups by a novel score including genetics (including epigenetics) and immune markers in addition to family history. The study design combines analysis of available data and bio-samples in addition to new prospective recruitment.

As main result, the identification of different allergy risk profiles primed early in life will enable us to suggest new diagnostic procedures for a better prediction of allergic disease outcomes.