The National Institutes of Health has granted $7.2 million to the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center to establish a new asthma and allergy research center and to fund three studies on the genetics involved in allergic response:

• the interaction of six genes believed to be involved in allergies and asthma, and how environmental factors such as tobacco smoke and pets influence those genes


• the effect of drugs and other therapeutic agents on eotaxin-3, a molecule that plays a major role in allergic inflammation of the esophagus implicated in food allergies


• how differences in genes that interact with the substance chitin influence allergic asthma

It's definitely encouraging to see that allergies and asthma are getting enough attention to warran federal funding. It'll probably be years, if not decades until we all directly benefit from the products of these research, but at least, we're making progress.