Dr. Upton is a Clinical Immunologist and Allergist at the Hospital for Sick Children, an Associate Professor in Paediatrics at the University of Toronto, and the Medical Director of the Clinical Research Center, Research Institute, Hospital for Sick Children. She is the immediate past Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Section Head of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, and on the medical advisory board of Food Allergy Canada. She graduated from Queen’s University in Life Sciences, Western Medical school, completed residency at McMaster University, Allergy/Immunology fellowship at University of Toronto, and a Master’s in Public Health at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. Her clinical practice focuses on both clinical immunodeficiency and allergy. Her research interests include optimizing the care of immunodeficiencies and exploring the risk factors, severity, prognosis and treatment of food allergies through observational and clinical trials.
The management of food allergy is expanding from strict avoidance of the food to efforts to actively treat the food allergy. One approach is the induction of oral tolerance by eating tiny increasing amounts of the food, called oral immunotherapy. This presentation will cover the basic approach to oral immunotherapy, the risks and benefits of the approach, and its future outlook.