Part 2 of 2: New Guidelines and Evolving Evidence for Infant Feeding and Food Allergies

Time: 12:00 - 13:00 EST

Speakers: Edmond S. Chan MD, FRCPC, FAAAAI and Meghan Azad, PhD

Pediatric societies around the world have recently reversed their recommendations regarding when to introduce allergenic foods (such as peanut and egg) to infants. This webinar will summarize the latest evidence from observational studies and clinical trials on infant feeding (breastfeeding and the introduction of allergenic foods) and food allergy development.  The specific learning objectives are:

About the Speakers:

Edmond S. Chan MD, FRCPC, FAAAAI
Head, Division of Allergy & Immunology, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine

Dr. Edmond S. Chan is certified by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in both Pediatrics and Clinical Immunology and Allergy, after having completed a residency in Pediatrics and fellowship in Clinical Immunology and Allergy (2004).  He sees patients in the Allergy clinic at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, BC, Canada.  He created the University of British Columbia (UBC) Pediatric Clinical Immunology and Allergy fellowship training program (the only one west of Manitoba), and was its first program director (2009-13).  He has been the Head of the Division of Allergy & Immunology within the Department of Pediatrics since 2013, and is a Clinical Associate Professor at UBC.  He is a Clinical Investigator at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, and runs a large research program dedicated to multiple aspects of pediatric food allergy and eosinophilic esophagitis.

Dr. Chan has been on the Board of directors of the Canadian Society of Allergy & Clinical Immunology (CSACI) since 2010, and is the youngest ever recipient of the Jerry Dolovich Award (awarded in 2017 for demonstrating excellence in clinical work, teaching, and research, and serving as a leader and role model for the specialty).  He is on the Executive of the Allergy Section within the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS).  He is the principal author of the 2013 CPS Position statement on Dietary exposures and allergy prevention in high-risk infants.  He is co-author for the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) / National Institutes of Health Food Allergy guidelines on Prevention of Peanut allergy, recently published in January 2017.

Meghan Azad, PhD
Canada Research Chair in Developmental Origins of Chronic Disease
Research Scientist, Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba
Assistant Professor, Pediatrics & Child Health, University of Manitoba

Dr. Meghan Azad leads a research program (www.azadlab.ca) focused on the role of infant nutrition and gut microbiota in the development of asthma, allergies and obesity. Her team has established that breast milk feeding mode (at the breast vs. pumped breast milk) is associated with asthma risk, and shown that maternal peanut consumption while breastfeeding may help protect against peanut sensitization.

Dr. Azad co-leads the Manitoba site of the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) Study (www.canadianchildstudy.ca), a national pregnancy cohort following 3500 children to understand how early life experiences shape lifelong health. She is directing multiple projects related to lactation and infant feeding practices in the CHILD cohort, including integrated studies linking human milk composition and gut microbiota with epigenetic profiles and clinical phenotypes. Dr. Azad serves on the Executive Council for the International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation, and the Breastfeeding Committee of Canada. Her research is funded by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, Research Manitoba, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

To register, please click here.


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