Jun 9, 2026
Ilana Golant, Founder and CEO of the Food Allergy Fund, discusses the increasing prevalence and complexity of food allergies in people of all ages and the lack of research, funding, and diagnostics in this field. The Food Allergy Fund is taking a multifaceted approach to address these challenges, including funding microbiome research, exploring drug repurposing, and leveraging AI to develop better diagnostic tools. The goal is to find a cure for food allergies to prevent life-threatening anaphylaxis and drive research into the connection between food allergies and gut and immune health.
Ilana explains, "We launched a microbiome research collective recently because we really think the microbiome is the common denominator for many diseases. I mean, food allergy really no longer exists in isolation. It used to be 20 years ago, you would say someone had a peanut allergy. That patient doesn't really exist anymore. It is estimated that 40% of patients who have food allergies also have asthma, which is a significant comorbidity, but their other diseases overlap with Crohn's, juvenile diabetes, and atopic dermatitis, among others."
"We really think of food allergy as the canary in the coal mine for lifelong gut and immune health, and what the microbiome dysregulation could mean not only for food allergy, but for broader gut health. And so as part of our Microbiome Collective, we're right now funding studies at six different research institutions across the country to try to figure out what this gut dysbiosis means for food allergy and much more."
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