Access for All at the Food Allergy Institute

Hello! Thank you for supporting my fundraiser for the Access for All Grant at the Food Allergy Institute!

My name is Amaya Arora. I’m sixteen, a junior in high school in the suburbs of Chicago.

As a child, my parents considered me a "picky eater” since I rejected peanuts for their smell or didn't like lentils. Eventually, this progressed into hives after a paneer dish contaminated with peanut, or vomiting after curry with chickpeas. My family suspected an anaphylactic food allergy, and we ran a panel of allergen-specific IgE bloodwork. At twelve, I was diagnosed with anaphylactic allergies to peanut, soy, chickpea, and lentil.

Since diagnosis, I've had to avoid all my allergenic foods: reading every label, asking about ingredients before eating at a friend’s house, and having tiring, endless conversations with servers at every Chinese or Thai restaurant. As a vegetarian, this also severely limited my protein intake. There’s a constant fear of anaphylaxis–losing your life just because you accidentally ate the wrong ingredient. I carry two epinephrine auto-injectors, methylprednisolone, and antihistamines everywhere, just to save my life from a mistake any child could make.

My parents knew this couldn't go on forever. In the spring of eighth grade, they introduced me to Palforzia, an oral immunotherapy for peanut allergies that provides desensitization, reducing reaction severity after accidental ingestion. I was anxious, but agreed. Every other Friday, my father drove me to Loyola University Medical Center for an increased dose of peanut powder under my allergist's supervision. The dose continued at home for two weeks, mixed into yogurt or smoothies to mask the flavor.

It went well until the final 300 mg dose. I’d only had minor reactions before, but this time I felt asthmatic for the first time. I struggled to play tennis, even short of breath after a flight of stairs.

The final straw came the night before a fifteen-hour international flight. After a smoothie with 300 mg of peanut powder, I vomited around 2:00 AM, crying and hyperventilating, promising myself I'd never take another dose. I boarded my flight that morning and never touched Palforzia again.

The next nine months were the same: medication pouch every day, asking about allergens at every restaurant, reading every label before any snack.

But this wasn't destined to last forever.

In July, after freshman year, my parents introduced me to the Tolerance Induction Program (TIP) at the Food Allergy Institute. It seemed logistically impossible. As an ambitious high schooler, I couldn’t fly from Chicago to Long Beach for two-day appointments every ten weeks, plus a daunting daily schedule of sublingual immunotherapy, maintenance foods, recommended foods, and treatment foods, far beyond the single daily dose of Palforzia that had already overwhelmed me.

For months, I argued with my parents. The U.S. seemed allergy-friendly. Why not live with avoidance for life? Where would I find time for such frequent travel and intensive daily dosing? 

I’d focused on logistics but ignored the science. The program uses biosimilar proteins, or safe foods that share a similar amino acid structure to an anaphylactic allergen, cross-training the immune system without triggering a reaction. It uses precision biomarkers, mapping a patient’s immune system and evaluating IgE and IgG4 antibody levels, skin prick tests, and basophil activation, so an algorithm builds an individualized and tightly controlled escalation curve. And it treats all a patient’s allergens at once, since the algorithmic models map how protein structures overlap and cross-react.

Most importantly, the Institute offered “food freedom”, eating unlimited amounts of previously anaphylactic allergens and reaching remission, not just desensitization like Palforzia. Who could refuse that?

After hours of research, I agreed to travel to Long Beach for Onboarding and Launch appointments. I was shocked to learn my treatment meant sixteen visits over four years, into college. Nevertheless, I knew I had to commit.

Now I couldn’t be happier I did. Daily dosing is routine and has made my diet healthier, with exposure to non-allergenic but biosimilar nuts and legumes. Travelling to Long Beach every ten weeks is no longer a chore but a chance to disconnect from academics and spend two days with my parents. Despite three years of treatment remaining, every passed food challenge, every small win, is motivating. My personal journey, plus my interest in medical physiology and public health, has inspired me toward a career in pulmonology or immunology; I hope to practice the same medicine that’s changing my life.

That’s why I’m raising funds for the Access for All Grant. Allergy remission is priceless, and I’m ecstatic to help other children with severe food allergies enter the Tolerance Induction Program. Any support is greatly appreciated and will give countless children access to a profoundly life-changing opportunity.