Graduation Year

2019

Date of Submission

12-2018

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Biology

Reader 1

Elise Ferree

Reader 2

Pete Chandrangsu

Terms of Use & License Information

Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

OCLC Record Number

1089197198

Abstract

Allergies are considered atopic diseases, or diseases that cause the immune system to create an abnormal amount of IgE antibodies when the body is exposed to an allergen. Allergies affect many people around the world, however many studies have shown a higher rate of allergy in developed countries when compared to developing countries. This discrepancy is hypothesized to be in part because of a decrease in parasitic infections, which have shown to have a protective effect for autoimmune-type diseases, like allergies. There are not many long-term, effective allergy treatments, however a promising allergen-specific immunotherapy technique uses a vaccine that targets B cell epitopes with the hope of increasing the amount of IgG antibodies as opposed to IgE specific antibodies to decrease the likelihood of an allergic reaction. This paper proposes a study that combines the protective effects of a parasite infection with a helminth infection and a B cell epitope vaccination, an already studied BM32 vaccine, to improve allergy symptoms of those with grass pollen allergy. This combination treatment will aim to decrease the number of symptomatic days, eosinophil count found at a scratch test site, and IgE antibodies found within the blood in grass pollen allergic people during peak grass pollen season.

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