The Annual London Presidential Lecture took place on Thursday 16th November 2017 .
Prof Gideon Lack addressed the Association on the topic “Prevention of Food Allergies – from London to Tel Aviv”
Gideon Lack is Professor of Paediatric Allergy at King’s College London and Head of the Academic Paediatric Allergy Service at Guy’s & St. Thomas’.
Prof Lack studied medicine at Oxford University before training as a Paediatrician in New York, and specialised in Allergy at National Jewish Centre in Denver, Colorado where he trained with his lifelong mentors Erwin Gelfand, Donald Leung, and Harold Nelson.
He was Professor of Paediatric Allergy and Immunology at Imperial College London where he worked for 12 years before moving to King’s College London in 2006.
His research focuses on peanut allergy and strategies to prevent food allergies through oral tolerance induction. The LEAP study showed that early consumption of peanuts in atopic infants reduces the development of peanut allergy by >80%. He is investigating whether oral tolerance induction is long-lasting in the absence of peanut consumption and if early consumption of other food allergens induces tolerance. His research suggests that allergic sensitisation to food occurs through an impaired skin barrier and focuses on mechanisms of cutaneous sensitisation and oral tolerance.