Kari Nadeau

Kari C. Nadeau is an American physician-scientist focused on allergy and asthma treatment at Stanford University School of Medicine. She is the Naddisy Family Foundation Professor of Allergy and the director of the Sean N Parker Center for Allergy Research at Stanford. Her team was among the first to show that high dimensional immunophenotyping of T cells involved in allergy could be used in therapies for patients. Her research has also shown that blocking antibodies in conjunction with allergen immunotherapy produced desensitization even in patients with up to five food allergens.
Education.
After graduating from Haverford College with a degree in biology, Nadeau attended Harvard Medical School via the Medical Scientist Training Program (NIH), and received a PhD in biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology and an MD in 1995. She then performed an internship and residency in pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School. From 1998 to 2002, she worked in the field of biopharmaceuticals and led clinical research to obtain FDA approval for two biologics in the field of Autoimmunity and Oncology, respectively. From 2003 to 2006, Nadeau was a fellow in Asthma, Allergy and Immunology at the Stanford/UCSF program under Dale Umetsu. During this time, she also did a postdoctoral fellowship in human immune tolerance mechanisms in asthma and allergy.
Career.
In 2006, Nadeau was appointed to the Stanford University School of Medicine with appointments in Pediatrics and Otolaryngology. In 2016 she was named the Naddisy Foundation Professor of Pediatric Food Allergy, Immunology and Asthma endowed professorship under the Naddisy Family Foundation. Nadeau has served as a reviewer for NIH Study Sections, and a member of the American Lung Association Medical Board, CA. She serves on the Environmental Health Policy committee for the American Thoracic Society and is a Fellow in the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and is a member of ASCI (American Society of Clinical Investigation). Her laboratory focuses on the study of immunological mechanisms involved in the cause, diagnosis, and therapy for allergy and asthma. In December, 2014 Sean Parker donated $24 million to Stanford to establish the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research at Stanford University, with Nadeau as the director.
In September 2020, Dr. Kari Nadeau published The End of Food Allergy: The First Program To Prevent and Reverse a 21st Century Epidemic with co-author Sloan Barnett. 
Research.
Nadeau's laboratory is working on scientific investigations of immune tolerance. Areas of research include:
Monitoring T cells in immunotherapy and their effect on tolerance.
Translational work (through conducting novel and innovative clinical studies to induce tolerance through immunotherapy) on Treg function and epigenetic changes of pivotal loci in Foxp3 and IL-10, IFN-γ, and IL-4. This research led to novel findings on markers of immune tolerance in a pilot clinical trial using peanut oral immunotherapy for near fatal peanut allergy.
Mechanisms of food allergy immunotherapy.
Research focusing on safe and effective treatments for food allergies. A pilot multifood allergen immunotherapy trial demonstrated that oral immunotherapy can simultaneously and successfully achieve desensitization for multiple allergens and that adjunct use of omalizumab facilitates and decreases time to desensitization. A follow-up double-blind, randomized, controlled phase 2 study provided further evidence that in multifood allergic  patients, omalizumab improves  the efficacy of multifood oral immunotherapy and enables safe and rapid desensitization. The data from clinical trials provided initial evidence for the safety and feasibility of oral immunotherapy for food allergies.
T cell epitope use, discovery, and allergen identification.
Clinical trials involving participants with multiple food allergies has enabled determination of associations and cross-reactivities of different food allergens. These studies have further assisted with epitope mapping, identification, and characterization of allergenic components of foods that induce clinical reactivity. Data from these studies may, in the future, enable therapeutic targets for food allergies.
Biomarkers and pollution/clinical outcomes.
Dedicated, collaborative teams examining plasma, cellular, and epigenetic markers that are affected by air pollution in children, adolescents, and adults. Using well characterized cohorts in the Bay Area (for acute pollution exposure—i.e. wildfire) and in the Central Valley (for chronic exposure—i.e. Fresno is one of the highest ranked cities in the country for PM2.5 air pollution), we have been able to perform innovative and impactful research that has helped shape public policy towards mitigating pollution and its effects on the public, (especially those at risk populations (like children) and the underserved (like Hispanic populations in the Central Valley of California).
Pollution and asthma.
A number of environmental pollutants, caused by human activity, have been associated with asthma. Short-term and long-term exposures to high levels of CO, NO2, and PM2.5 mediate epigenetic alterations of Foxp3 and IL-10, key genes known to be associated with T cells and atopic disease. Exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, found at high levels in areas of increased traffic, decrease telomere length.
Media.
Nadeau and her work have made a number of media appearances supporting food allergy awareness and research: