LISTEN: Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is leading the first clinical trial looking at a new way to prevent reactions in people with peanut allergies. GPB’s Ellen Eldridge reports.
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta is leading a multi-site study to test a new way of potentially treating peanut allergy with an approach called a microneedle stamp, which has been used in other types of research in the past, most commonly with vaccines, Chief of Allergy and Immunology at Children’s and principal investigator on the study Dr. Brian Vickery said.
The stamp was developed by Moonlight Therapeutics, Inc., an Atlanta-based biotech company whose cofounders completed postdoctoral work at Georgia Tech before receiving clearance in late 2025 from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to be tested in humans for the first time.
“The technology behind it allows for a minimally invasive way to administer the allergen within the skin in a matter of minutes, President and CEO Samir Patel said. "It requires no eating or ingestion of peanuts and is designed for home use.”
The study is testing whether a microneedle stamp, worn for three minutes, would be less painful than injection and more effective than a patch at improving immune response to peanut allergy in adults.
While there have been other forms of immunotherapies tested in previous trials and even in some cases used in practice, the ability to consistently deliver the dose has sometimes been challenging, Vickery said.
"This platform allows us to very precisely control the amount and it's a tiny, tiny little dose that goes just in the outer layers of the skin," he said. "Our hope is that that will be safe and well-tolerated and with repeated administration, lead to immune changes that could protect patients from accidental reactions to peanut."
If the trial is successful, they hope to replicate it in adolescents and, eventually, children. Experts estimate 30,000 children in the metro Atlanta live with peanut allergies.
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