Treating allergies often involves daily over-the-counter medication, but a groundbreaking discovery at the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason could mean a trajectory shift in treatment for allergy sufferers.

Researchers have discovered a single type of cell they say appears to drive all allergies, whether they are food allergies or environmental. The cell has a name Th2A. The discovery could mean that allergy suffers won’t have to rely on daily medicine to fight allergies.

Dr. Erik Wambre began this study seven years ago by examining a type of immune cell, Th2, which helps coordinate how the immune system responds to parasites, viruses and bacterial infections, but also leads to allergies. As Wambre and his colleagues analyzed the blood samples from BRI’s Allergy and Asthma Biorepositories containing these cells, they discovered a specialized subtype of cell, which they called Th2A, which is present in people with allergies but almost entirely absent from people who don’t have allergies.

As Wambre and his colleagues analyzed blood samples containing these cells, they discovered a specialized subtype of cell, which they called Th2A, which is present in people with allergies but almost entirely absent from people who don’t have allergies. The researchers found that, unlike normal Th2 cells, these Th2A cells lack expression of one key protein – called CD27 – while simultaneously expressing the CRTH2 and CD161 proteins – that lead the immune system to overreact to allergens.