Murdoch Children's Research Institute’s (MCRI) Dr Melanie Lloyd and Dr Craig McKenzie have been awarded grants to advance their research into childhood food allergies.

Dr Lloyd and Dr McKenzie received 2025 Allergy and Immunology Foundation of Australasia (AIFA) grants for their projects, aiming to improve outcomes for children with food allergies.

Australia has the highest reported rates of childhood food allergy in the world, with one in 10 babies and one in 20 primary school-aged children affected.

MCRI Allergy Immunology researcher and National Allergy Centre of Excellence (NACE) Postdoctoral fellow Dr Lloyd received a $10,000 AIFA Early Career and New Researcher Grant for her project into better understanding what drives safe and effective peanut allergy remission in children who have received oral immunotherapy (OIT).

Image: Dr Melanie Lloyd

Her project will study patient data from OIT trials, where patients gradually eat small amounts of a food they’re allergic to, to find out which traits such as age and treatment factors (duration of immunotherapy or dosing size) better lead to remission from a peanut allergy.

Dr Lloyd said she hoped the research would contribute to more personalised and effective OIT strategies for children with peanut allergy.

MCRI’s Population Allergy researcher and NACE Food Allergy Biobank co-lead Dr McKenzie was awarded a $15,000 AIFA DBV Technologies Food Allergy Research Grant for his project that will investigate the immune responses that prevent, promote and predict the onset of allergies.

Image: Dr Craig McKenzie

Dr McKenzie’s research aims to better understand how antibodies impact on allergic reactions.

“We aim to figure out how good antibodies can grab allergens in a headlock to stop the immune response from overreacting and unleashing allergic reactions such as hives, rash and anaphylaxis,” he said.