A vaccine may successfully turn off peanut allergy in mice, a new study shows.

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Just three monthly doses of a nasal vaccine protected the mice from allergic reactions upon exposure to peanut, according to research from the Mary H. Weiser Food Allergy Center at the University of Michigan.

U-M researchers have spent nearly two decades developing a vaccine agent and have recently translated this work to the development of a vaccine to treat food allergies. In the new study, immunizing peanut allergic mice can redirect how immune cells responded to peanuts in allergic mice.

The new approach activates a different type of immune response that prevents allergic symptoms.

“We’re changing the way the immune cells respond upon exposure to allergens,” says lead author Jessica O’Konek, Ph.D., a research investigator at the food allergy center. “Importantly, we can do this after allergy is established, which provides for potential therapy of allergies in humans.”

“By redirecting the immune responses, our vaccine not only suppresses the response but prevents the activation of cells that would initiate allergic reactions.”

The study, funded by grants from Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) and the Department of Defense, was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. It was also funded by a gift from the Shaevsky Family Foundation.