Dr. Commins sees patients in the UNC allergy clinic and maintains an active research laboratory. His primary research and clinical interest is the recently described red meat allergy. This unique food allergy appears to be brought on by tick bites and can develop at any time throughout life, even after many years of enjoying beef, pork or lamb. Patients develop an allergic response to the sugar alpha-gal and the resulting allergic reactions are often delayed 3-6 hours after eating mammalian meat. Dr. Commins often sees patients in the allergy clinic with difficult to diagnose food allergies or allergic reactions.
In the research laboratory, the primary questions being addressed related to the role of tick bites in developing this allergy. The focus is to understand how and why the allergy response occurs so that patients with this and other food allergies can be effectively treated.
