Evidence Based Research and Trials
Since 2020
At the Institute for Allergic Inflammation (IAI), we conceptualize allergies as systemic inflammatory processes rather than isolated symptoms, beginning with barrier dysfunction and advancing to inflammation across multiple organ systems.
About Us
Institute for Allergic Inflammation
The years following the COVID-19 pandemic have brought an unprecedented rise in patients presenting with chronic, multisystem inflammatory conditions. Clinicians across the country have observed a surge in uncontrolled asthma and worsening COPD, recurrent bronchitis, alongside a growing number of individuals reporting persistent, unexplained symptoms affecting nearly every organ system. These include cognitive and neurological complaints (“brain fog,” fatigue, dysautonomia), cardiovascular symptoms (palpitations, tachycardia, anxiety-associated episodes), gastrointestinal issues resembling IBS, urinary urgency and overactive bladder symptoms, musculoskeletal pain with joint stiffness or reduced grip strength, and a marked increase in chronic urticaria and pruritus.
Many of these patients cycle through “long COVID” clinics, where fragmented understanding of the underlying disease mechanisms often results in symptom-based management rather than targeted treatment. Emerging clinical patterns suggest that individuals with pre-existing allergic inflammation are disproportionately vulnerable to prolonged, systemic inflammatory responses following viral infections, yet the biological mechanisms governing this vulnerability remain largely unexplored.
Recognizing this urgent unmet need, Dr. Doanh Nguyen, MD (Texas Allergy Group) and Dr. Philip Deitiker, PhD established a collaborative effort to investigate how allergic inflammation contributes to systemic disease expression. Their work focuses on identifying and validating biomarkers that quantify inflammatory burden, predict disease severity, and detect early signs of organ involvement, including tolerance breaking and the development of autoimmune disorders.
The Institute for Allergic Inflammation was founded to expand this mission. Our goal is to advance scientific understanding of systemic allergic inflammation, establish standardized approaches to diagnosis and treatment, and provide evidence-based strategies to prevent progression to chronic, multisystem disease. We are committed to translating emerging research into clinical practice, educating the medical community and the public, and promoting cost-effective, early-intervention models that improve long-term health outcomes.
Scientific Mission Statement
The Institute for Allergic Inflammation is a translational research organization focused on defining allergic disease as a chronic, systems level inflammatory process driven by immune dysregulation at environmentally exposed epithelial surfaces.
Current clinical paradigms primarily conceptualize allergic disorders as organ-specific conditions, assessed through static, compartmentalized metrics. These approaches inadequately capture the cumulative inflammatory burden, temporal evolution, and systemic consequences of allergic immune activation. Emerging clinical and biological evidence suggests that lower airway and epithelial inflammation may serve as central amplifiers of autonomic, metabolic, and immune perturbations, contributing to multisystem dysfunction and early autoimmune phenomena.
The scientific mission of the Institute is to:
- Quantify inflammatory load and duration using integrated biomarker panels that reflect epithelial injury, immune activation, and systemic propagation of inflammation.
- Characterize the longitudinal progression of allergic inflammation, including transitions from localized epithelial disease to remote organ involvement and immune tolerance breakdown.
- Identify biological signatures predictive of systemic complications, including autonomic dysregulation, cardiometabolic stress, viral reactivation, and nascent autoimmunity.
- Evaluate treatment strategies based on their capacity to reduce total inflammatory burden and restore immune and epithelial stability, rather than isolated symptom control.
- Develop systems based disease models that integrate clinical physiology, immunologic biomarkers, environmental exposure data, and real world patient outcomes.
Through interdisciplinary collaboration and real world clinical research, the Institute seeks to advance a mechanistic understanding of allergic inflammation that bridges molecular biology, organ physiology, and environmental science. This framework aims to support earlier detection, biologically grounded risk stratification, and interventions designed to prevent progression to irreversible organ damage or autoimmune disease.
The Institute for Allergic Inflammation is committed to generating reproducible, clinically actionable evidence that reframes allergic disease from episodic organ pathology to a dynamic, measurable inflammatory system.
Meet the Scientists
The scientists at the Institute for Allergic Inflammation come from diverse backgrounds but share a unified vision: to address complex, interconnected medical questions centered on progressive inflammation driven by immune dysregulation in response to environmental exposures. We study how everyday environmental exposures, such as allergens and pollutants, can disrupt the immune system and lead to ongoing inflammation.
Our work focuses on defining and quantifying inflammatory burden, identifying biomarkers of disease activity, and understanding the mechanisms that lead to loss of immune tolerance. Equally important, we aim to slow the progression of inflammation related organ dysfunction and reduce the risk of transition from chronic inflammation to autoimmune disease. By doing so, we aim to intervene earlier, slow the progression of disease, protect organ function, and reduce the risk of developing autoimmune conditions. Through this work, we strive to turn scientific discovery into meaningful improvements in patient health and long term wellbeing.
Doanh Nguyen, MD FAAAAI
Senior Scientific Collaborator, Institute for Allergic Inflammation
Allergist Immunologist | Texas Allergy Group
Philip Deitiker, PhD
Senior Scientific Collaborator, Institute for Allergic Inflammation
Biochemist | Immunogenetics Researcher | Molecular Inflammation Scientist