Marissa Sulek joined CBS News Chicago in January 2025. Before Chicago, Marissa was a general assignment reporter in Nashville at WSMV, where she was nominated for Mid-South Emmy Awards for her reporting on the deadly flooding in rural Waverly.
Scientists at Northwestern University have found that a drug used for asthma could stop life-threatening food allergies by inhibiting a reaction in the first place.
Researchers found the drug, zileuton, works to prevent food allergies in mice. Now they want to know if millions of humans can also benefit.
Evanston native Ilana Golant never knew she had a food allergy until three years ago, when she got an anaphylactic reaction from inhaling sunflower butter.
While she developed her allergies later in life, her 9-year-old daughter Emma has a list of food allergies that started at young age.
"She developed anaphylactic food allergies at 13 months, and I knew absolutely nothing about food allergies," Golant said.
Anaphylactic allergic reactions can be deadly and require immediate attention. Golant says the worry weighs on her daily, so she started the Food Allergy Fund, which gives money to research across the country.
"Right now there is no FDA approved disease modifying drug available, period, for any patient," she said.
But Northwestern University doctors Stephanie Eisenbarth and Adam Williams are leading a new study thanks to the fund. They found an asthma drug called zileuton could work. It's FDA approved and may be a safe, cheap and accessible option.
"I think if I had said to a group of people, experts in food allergy, we want to trial this drug in food allergy, everyone would have said you're kind of crazy what are you doing?" Eisenbarth said.
They are now running a new trial with more than 20 people from Chicago that started in June to see if the drug, which has so far worked in mice, will work in humans.
"Obviously that has to be an incredibly controlled and safe environment so if someone needs epinephrine or more help it's available right away," she said.
Eisenbarth said if zileuton is the future, it would prevent accidental exposures like on airplanes, at restaurants or at parties.
It's not meant for everyday use, but Golant said it's also just the beginning.
"We are probably going to need more tools in our toolbox because the disease is becoming more common and more prevalent," she said.
There is no timeline yet on when we could expect to see zileuton offered to people for allergies. Doctors said researchers at Yale also found that the drug blocked allergies in animals as well.