FARE Announces Key Partnerships in Crusade to Advance Food Allergy Research

MCLEAN, Va., Jan. 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- FARE, the world's leading non-governmental organization engaged in food allergy advocacy and the largest private funder of food allergy research, has awarded two competitive grants to partner institutions that will bolster FARE's 2020 expansion of the FARE Clinical Network, powering advances in food allergy research. The FARE Clinical Network is a nationwide coalition of 50 academic, research and clinical centers dedicated to providing food allergy patients with access to cutting-edge prevention, diagnosis, care and clinical trials. The awards announced today will fund vital research infrastructure to support groundbreaking multi-center studies within the FARE Clinical Network.

"With the addition of these two new, critical functions, the FARE Clinical Network is poised to accelerate FARE's drive to transform food allergy research," notes Bruce Roberts, FARE's Chief Research Strategy and Innovation officer. "Cincinnati Children's and CHOP have acclaimed expertise in the study and treatment of allergic diseases, including food allergy, and each is uniquely positioned to further the game-changing translational research and multi-site clinical trials for which the expanded FARE Clinical Network is designed."

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center has been selected by FARE to house the FARE Clinical Network Biobank and Biomarker Discovery Center. As home to the largest pediatric biorepository in the world, Cincinnati Children's brings exceptional experience in the acquisition, processing, storage and distribution of biospecimens for health research. FARE Clinical Network investigators can leverage this outstanding resource into their clinical research pursuits.

The FARE Clinical Network Biobank and Biomarker Discovery Center will receive anonymous and privacy-protected biological samples donated by food allergy patients seen at FARE Clinical Network centers. These samples, combined with anonymous and privacy-protected electronic health data, will create unparalleled opportunities to understand food allergy mechanisms, discover potential treatments, and identify molecular markers for use in diagnosing food allergy, monitoring disease progression, measuring treatment effectiveness, assessing individual risk for severe allergic reaction and predicting patient outcomes.

FARE has selected the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) as the FARE Clinical Network Data Coordination Center, which will support the design, development, execution, monitoring and analysis of clinical research studies, including clinical trials to evaluate promising therapeutics and approaches for food allergy treatment and prevention. Data Coordination Center services will include assisting research teams at the FARE Clinical Network sites with protocol development, FDA submissions and safety oversight for studies within the Network.

"The establishment of the FARE Research and Clinical Network is a visionary initiative to move forward the research and clinical care for patients and families with food allergies," said Dr. Amal Assa'ad, Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Allergy and Immunology and Principal Investigator for the FCN Biobank and Biomarker Discovery Center at Cincinnati Children's. The FARE Biobank and Biomarker Discovery Center at Cincinnati Children's will be the first and only Biobank solely dedicated to food allergy. It brings together the experience of the Cincinnati Children's Discover Together Biobank in supporting national research networks and the expertise of biomarker researchers at the Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation and the Division of Allergy and Immunology in innovation and discovery to form a strong and collaborative infrastructure for the FARE Network."

"We are honored to once again work with FARE on our shared mission of bringing the latest in care to children with food allergies," shared Dr. Jonathan Spergel, Chief of the Allergy Program at CHOP. "The research developed here will hopefully lead to cutting-edge therapeutics that could change the lives of children with food allergies.  We are excited to be chosen as the data coordinating center for FARE Clinical Network."

The innovative research infrastructure that FARE is building is key to slowing the rise in food allergies, which have more than doubled in prevalence in the past decade, and will help protect the 32 million Americans now living with food allergy, who are at risk for anaphylaxis, a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction.

To learn more about the FARE Clinical Network, visit foodallergy.org/fareclinicalnetwork.

About FARE

FARE is the world's leading non-governmental organization engaged in food allergy advocacy and the largest private funder of food allergy research. Our mission is to improve the quality of life and the health of individuals with food allergies, and to provide them hope through the promise of new treatments. FARE is transforming the future of food allergy through innovative initiatives that will lead to increased awareness, new and improved treatments and prevention strategies, effective policies and legislation and novel approaches to managing the disease. To learn more about FARE, visit our Living Teal™ YouTube channel or www.foodallergy.org.

SOURCE Food Allergy Research & Education