Reduced-Immunogenicity Peanut and Wheat: Prospects for Oral Immunotherapy and Safer Dietary Alternatives

Many leading health organizations worldwide recognize food as medicine. However, approximately 10% of the global population—equivalent to 770 million individuals—suffers from food allergies. For most plant-based food allergies, strict dietary avoidance remains the only approved treatment, aside from emergency medications such as epinephrine and antihistamines, and a limited number of approved oral immunotherapies. Unfortunately, these therapies are often inaccessible to middle-income families, as are specialized diets and maintaining allergen-free environments. Given these challenges, there is a critical need for low-immunogenicity crops that can either serve as oral immunotherapies to desensitize the immune system or as alternative food sources to address nutritional deficiencies caused by restrictive diets, such as gluten-free diets. In this presentation, I will discuss examples of reduced-immunogenicity crops developed by our team, including hypoallergenic peanuts and wheat, as well as similar efforts by other research groups, such as hypoallergenic soybean, barley, and corn. Additionally, Dr. Rustgi will shed light on public perspectives on developing reduced-immunogenicity crops through crossbreeding and gene editing, as well as on the roles of domestication, breeding, and future warmer environments in shaping crop immunogenicity, thereby offering a broader perspective on the development of low-immunogenicity crops.

Join us in person or via Zoom https://clemson.zoom.us/j/93755087850.