Allergic to Life

Her nose is stuffy, her throat sounds scratchy, and the University of Minnesota’s Smith Hall, where Christy Haynes has an office, seems a ripe venue for dust mites, mold cultures, and other irritants you probably wouldn’t want to meet under a dark microscope. Even so, Haynes blames the redness around her eyes on an infant son who still hasn’t slept through the night—not on any airborne contaminant. “It’s really just a cold,” she says, almost apologetically. “I don’t actually have allergies.”

While she may not suffer herself, Haynes, an assistant professor of chemistry, has been singled out by the National Institutes of Health for an innovative investigation that could help bring relief to the 50 million Americans who are made miserable by itchy eyes, runny noses, and much worse. While new medications for allergy symptoms multiply every season (hay fever sufferers will now find more than 60 prescription and over-the-counter drugs made just for them), research still hasn’t fully revealed why a growing number of us have exaggerated immune responses to such generally harmless substances as pollen, pet dander, and peanuts. With the help of a $1.5 million NIH New Innovator award, Haynes and her research team hope to find some of the answers by building a cell-by-cell model of the human immune system. On credit card–sized chips built by the University’s Nanofabrication Center, investigators will isolate each cell, charting the way each reacts and communicates in turn—a painstaking process that may someday reveal the molecular science behind the sneeze or the swollen insect bite.