A/Prof Janet Davies received funding from the NFMRI between 2015 to 2016.
Grass pollen allergens are a major cause of hayfever and allergic asthma worldwide. Treatment by grass pollen immnotherapy vaccines improves patients’ symptoms, quality of life and productivity. Importantly, such therapy can reduce the burden of asthma. However, most vaccines are based on pollens of temperate rather than subtropical grasses. Optimised vaccines based on subtropical grass pollens are needed to provide more specific and effective allergen desensitisation treatment for patients in subtropical regions. Here we aim to utilise our intellectual property and know how pertaining to subtropical grass pollen allergens to develop a new method to measure and standardise the allergen content of subtropical grass pollen allergy vaccine products. The outcomes will have the potential to meet the growing need of patients in subtropical regions of Australia, Asia, Africa and America. An additional utility for this novel method is in outdoor allergen monitoring.
