A decade ago, a clinical trial in the U.K. famously showed that children who were exposed to peanuts in the early months of life had reduced risk of developing a peanut allergy compared with children who avoided peanuts.
Now, researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) have a likely answer as to why that’s the case: Thetis cells.
This recently discovered class of immune cells, which were first described by MSK researchers in 2022, plays an essential and previously unknown role in suppressing inflammatory responses to food, according to findings published May 15 in Science, one of the world’s premier scientific journals.
Moreover, the study, which was conducted in mouse models, points to a critical window in the early months of life for…