Sean Parker donates $24M to create Stanford allergy research center

Sean Parker has announced he will donate $24 million to the Stanford University School of Medicine to create a new center that will research severe food allergies.

The noted investor and entrepreneur has suffered from food allergies. The money will be used to fund the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research at Stanford. The new center will be led by Dr. Kari Nadeau, MD, PhD, an immunology researcher at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and the School of Medicine.

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“We need to make catalytic changes in the field of allergy research by studying immune mechanisms in order to apply discoveries in real time to new safer and more durable therapies for adults and children,” Parker said in a press release. “I’m excited to partner with Stanford and believe that under the leadership of Dr. Nadeau, the Center will make a transformational impact on how we understand and treat allergies.

According to the press release:

“About one in three Americans suffers from some form of allergy, and doctor-diagnosed food allergies affect one in 12 American children under the age of 21 and one in about 50 adults. Of those individuals with a food allergy, approximately 25 percent will have a near-fatal anaphylactic reaction at some point in their lives. It is also estimated that $25 billion is spent each year on reactive food allergy care.”