Description: Co-hosts Ryan Piansky, a graduate student and patient advocate living with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) and eosinophilic asthma, and Holly Knotowicz, a speech-language pathologist living with EoE who serves on APFED’s Health Sciences Advisory Council, interview Dr. Wayne Shreffler, Chief of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology and Co-Director of The Food Allergy Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Shreffler is also an investigator at The Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Disease and The Food Allergy Science Initiative. His research is focused on understanding how adaptive immunity to dietary antigens is both naturally regulated and modulated by therapy in the context of food allergy. This interview covers the results of a research paper on The Intersection of Food Allergy and Eosinophilic Esophagitis, co-authored by Dr. Shreffler. Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is designed to support, not replace the relationship that exists between listeners and their healthcare providers. Opinions, information, and recommendations shared in this podcast are not a substitute for medical advice. Decisions related to medical care should be made with your healthcare provider. Opinions and views of guests and co-hosts are their own. Key Takeaways: [:50] Co-host Ryan Piansky introduces the episode, brought to you thanks to the support of Education Partners Bristol Myers Squibb, GSK, Sanofi, and Regeneron. Ryan introduces co-host, Holly Knotowicz. [1:15] Holly introduces today’s topic, the intersection of food allergy and eosinophilic esophagitis. [1:26] Holly introduces today’s guest, Dr. Wayne Shreffler, Chief of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology and Co-Director of The Food Allergy Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and an investigator at The Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Disease and The Food Allergy Science Initiative. [1:43] Dr. Shreffler’s research is focused on understanding how adaptive immunity to dietary antigens is both naturally regulated and modulated by therapy in the context of food allergy. [1:54] Holly welcomes Dr. Shreffler to Real Talk. When Holly moved to Maine, she sent her patients to Dr. Shreffler at Mass General. [2:25] Dr. Shreffler trained in New York on a Ph.D. track. He was interested in parasitic diseases and the Th2 immune response. Jane Curtis, a program director at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, encouraged him to consider MD/PhD programs. He did. [3:31] Jane Curtis connected him to Hugh Sampson, who was working with others to help understand the clinical prevalence of food allergy and allergens. [3:51] As a pediatric resident, Dr. Shreffler had seen the burden of allergic disease, caring for kids in the Bronx with asthma. His interest in Th2 immunity, the clear and compelling unmet clinical need, and the problem of food allergy guided his career. [4:31] Dr. Shreffler’s wife has food allergies and they were concerned for their children. Fortunately, neither of them developed food allergies. [5:21] Dr. Shreffler thinks the food allergy field has a lot of people who gravitate toward it for personal reasons. [5:53] Food allergy is an adverse response to food that is immune-mediated. There is still uncertainty about this but Dr. Shreffler believes that a large percentage of patients with EoE have some triggers that are food antigens. [6:27] The broad definition of food allergy would include things like food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome (FPIES). [6:47] The way we use the term food allergy in the clinic, there are two forms: IgE-mediated allergies and non-IgE-mediated allergies, including EoE. [7:40] Some patients have food-triggered eczema, some have FPIES. [8:04] In 2024, Dr. Shreffler and Dr. Caitlin Burk released a paper that looked at the triggers of EoE, particularly the intersection of IgE-mediated food allergy and EoE. [8:41] Dr. Caitlin Burk joined the group as they were publishing papers on IG food allergy and EoE. It was a moment where things unexpectedly came together. [9:17] Adaptive immunity to food proteins comes from antibodies that cause milk allergy, egg allergy, peanut allergy, or multiple allergies. The IgE has specificity. [9:40] T cells also are specific to proteins. They express a host of receptors that recognize almost anything the immune system might encounter. They have a long memory like B-cells. [10:09] The overlap in these two threads of research was regarding a population of T cells that are important for mediating chronic inflammation at epithelial sites, including the gut. [10:36] These T cells have been described in the airways in asthma, in the skin in eczema, and the GI tract. Researchers years ago had also described them as being associated with IgE food allergy. People with IgE food allergies avoid allergens. [11:13] T cells, being associated with chronic allergic inflammation, now being associated with food ...