University of Wisconsin Division of Allergy and Immunology

Thank you to everyone following the UW Allergy/Immunology Facebook site! Our institution has requested that our Division focus its social media presence to a single platform, specifically Twitter. This will be our last post on this site until that guidance changes. Please follow us on Twitter:

Many of our faculty and fellows are participating virtually at the AAAAI meeting this weekend (Feb 26th to March 1st) and those activities are being highlighted on Twitter, so please take a look.

The Allergy Faculty were given this precious Holiday gift by the fantastic nursing staff in the Allergy/Immunology Clinic. This sums up many of our sentiments about this previous year. However, despite the challenges of 2020, the UW Allergy/Immunology program has endured, adapted and grown in all of our missions: Clinical Care, Education, and Research. On behalf of all the faculty and staff of the UW Allergy/Immunology Program, we wish you all a very Happy Holidays!

The UW Allergy/Immunology Fellowship Program matched all three of our positions for the incoming fellowship class of 2021! This was a very unusual interview season with everything being done virtually; however, our coordinators and faculty adapted very well and we are excited to welcome Tonia Afshan (Pediatrics from Spectrum/Michigan State), Caitlan Murphy (Internal Medicine from Univ of Arkansas), and Farheen Osman (Pediatrics from Childrens Hosp of Michigan) as incoming fellows in summer of 2021!

The UW Allergy/Immunology Grand Rounds presenter today was Dr. Eric Schauberger, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at UW, and the Associate Program Director for the fellowship program. His presentation was entitled “The Role of Inflammasome in Allergic Diseases”. Dr. Schauberger presented a review of Inflammasome biology (“the Ring of Death”), the role of the inflammasome in the allergies and asthma, and novel therapeutics. Autoinflammatory aspects of COVID-19 infections have recently brought increased investigations into the inflammasome and therapeutics.

The State of Wisconsin has the unenviable distinction recently of rapidly growing number of COVID-19 cases. This has tremendous impact on our physician colleagues in the ICU and floors as well as the nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists, etc. It is unlikely to be a surprise to anyone in healthcare, but we encourage everyone to read the recent NEJM editorial on failures to lessen the impact of COVID-19.

Dying in a Leadership Vacuum | NEJM Editorial from The New England Journal of Medicine — Dying in a Leadership Vacuum

Check out the latest episode of the AAAAI podcast series featuring our very own Dr. Robert Lemanske Jr. https://www.aaaai.org/professional-education-and-training/podcasts

The UW Allergy/Immunology Grand Rounds presenter today was Dr. Matthew Greenhawt, Associate Professor and Director of the Food Challenge and Research Unit at the Childrens’ Hospital Colorado. His presentation was entitled “Providing Cost-effective Care in Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Management”. Dr. Greenhawt presented fascinating economic analyses of management options for pediatric food allergy and anaphylaxis with data suggesting that some screening and management approaches are not at all cost-effective. He also highlighted that the current COVID-19 pandemic has forced implementation of management that does not significantly increase risk, but provides more cost effective care by reducing patient reliance on procedures or management in the clinic or emergency department.

Allergy Grand Rounds today presented by Dr. Robert Lemanske. He reviewed the seminal contributions from work here at the University of Wisconsin on the importance of early viral infection, especially rhinovirus, on the risk for development of childhood asthma. He also highlighted the work from Dr. James Gern’s lab in identifying the receptor for the C group of rhinoviruses as well as recent recognition of the role of the nasal microbiome in risk for development of childhood asthma.

The UW Allergy /Immunology Research Group is actively involved in many clinical research studies. These were all on hold with COVID-19, but are now starting to slowly reopen to continue offering patients novel therapeutic options and participate in NIH funded national network studies (such as PrecISE and ECHO/CREW) to increase our knowledge of asthma and other allergic diseases. Dr. Sameer Mathur returned to his office for the first time since mid-March to help staff some of these patient visits and is sporting a mask with a custom design of eosinophils.

PrecISE: https://preciseasthma.org/preciseweb/about

ECHO/CREW: https://echochildren.org/

See the interview below for our own Dr. Sameer Mathur's thoughts on the use of biologics in Severe Asthma during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Use of biologics in Severe Asthma Relating to COVID-19 Sameer Mathur Associate Professor Allergy & Immunology, University of Wisconsin, USA https://www.euforea.eu

https://www.shutdownstem.com/about

Check out the article below for an update on findings from the UW-led Inner-City Asthma Consortium discussed with our own Dr. Daniel Jackson, MD

https://www.med.wisc.edu/news-and-events/2019/april/why-some-colds-lead-to-asthma-attacks-in-children/