Newswise — University of Virginia Professor of Medicine Thomas Platts-Mills, MD, PhD, has achieved the rare distinction of being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for his research into the causes of asthma and allergic disease. The Royal Society is the United Kingdom’s National Academy of Science and the oldest scientific academy in the world.
Only a small number of Fellows are physicians, and Dr. Platts-Mills is the first ever allergist to be elected. His election was based on more than 30 years of research on the role that dust mite, cat and cockroach allergens play in the development of allergic disease and asthma. His recent work, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2008, looked at patients who developed a life threatening allergic reaction, called anaphylaxis, during treatment for cancer. In February 2009, he led a study on anaphylactic reactions that occurred several hours after eating beef, pork or lamb. Both of these discoveries are related to IgE antibodies to a complex mammalian sugar which appear to be induced by tick bites. This represents a paradigm shift in the understanding of allergic reactions, including those to food. (More information about this study is available www.royalsociety.org.
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