David H. Koch, executive vice president and part-owner of Koch Industries Inc., which claims to be one of America's largest privately held companies, earlier this year committed $10 million to the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, in New York City. The gift is one of the largest in the institute's history and is being used to create the David H. and Julia Koch Research Program in Food Allergy Therapeutics.

The program is expected to serve as a hub for drug discovery and vaccine development related to food allergy, and to build upon the work already under way at the institute. The donation also will be used to further the institute's recruitment of leading researchers dedicated to the discovery of new food allergy therapeutics.

Nearly 15 million Americans have food allergies, including approximately 6 million children, says the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network. A 2010 study led by Dr. Scott Sicherer, a clinical researcher at the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute and chief of its allergy and immunology division in the institute's pediatrics department, found that the rates of childhood peanut allergies, one of the most common and most dangerous food allergies, more than tripled between 1997 and 2008.

Because the preventive shots used for allergies such as pollen or bee stings cause severe unwanted side effects when used for food allergies, scientists at the institute are conducting research investigating using small fragments of the three main allergenic proteins present in peanuts to create a "safe shot." If successful in preventing peanut allergy, the theory could be applied to vaccines for all food allergies. Koch's donation will support those studies as well as efforts to identify new targets and biomarkers for food allergy.

"This generous gift will strengthen Mount Sinai's position as a global leader in food allergy therapeutics," says Dr. Hugh Sampson, director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute and an internationally recognized allergist and investigator of food allergy. "Right now, the only recourse for patients who have food allergies is to avoid those foods. This program has the potential to deliver the first therapies and cures for food allergies."

The research conducted by the program especially will be significant for children's health, says Kenneth L. Davis, president and CEO of The Mount Sinai Medical Center.

"Breakthrough therapeutics such as these will change the face of children's health," he says. "Mr. Koch's visionary philanthropy brings us one step closer to that goal."

Koch is a major advocate for medical research and has long supported research into food allergies.

"This is an exhilarating time for science and medicine in food allergy ... but the most exciting discoveries are yet to come," Koch says. "My hope is that in the not-too-distant future, children who suffer from life-threatening food allergies will have their lives transformed from the therapies that originated here."

The Jaffe Food Allergy Institute was established in 1997 with the mission to expand and improve basic science and clinical research, comprehensive patient care, and educational efforts in the field of food allergy. A number of recent findings and ongoing studies have been reported, including the following:

•The group recently published a study showing that introducing food products containing baked milk into the diets of children who have milk allergy helps the majority of them outgrow their milk allergy more quickly.

•In a study to assess the social impact of food allergies in children, researchers found that about 35 percent of children five years old or older with food allergies experience bullying, teasing, or harassment as a result of their allergies.

•A team is currently conducting a clinical trial investigating the effectiveness of oral immunotherapy combined with other medication in the treatment of cow's milk allergy.

•A team of investigators is conducting a clinical trial investigating the effectiveness of Chinese herbs as a treatment for peanut, tree nuts, sesame, fish, or shellfish allergies.

•A team is investigating other novel forms of immunotherapy.

By combining a clinical research program with an equally strong laboratory-based one, the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute claims it's able to move ideas and investigations between the laboratory bench and the patient's bedside so it can approach these disorders as efficiently and creatively as possible. The major goal, it says, is to devise more definitive, hopefully curative, therapies for food allergic disease.

The Mount Sinai Medical Center encompasses both The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Established in 1968, Mount Sinai School of Medicine touts its efforts and innovation in areas such as education, biomedical research, clinical care delivery, and local and global community service. It has more than 3,400 faculty in 32 departments and 14 research institutes, and ranks among the top 20 medical schools both in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding and by U.S. News & World Report.

The Mount Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852, is a 1,171-bed tertiary- and quaternary-care teaching facility and claims to be one of the nation's oldest and largest voluntary hospitals. In 2011, U.S. News & World Report ranked The Mount Sinai Hospital 16th on its elite "honor roll" of the nation's top hospitals based on reputation, safety, and other patient-care factors.

Nearly 60,000 people were treated at Mount Sinai as inpatients last year, and approximately 560,000 outpatient visits took place.

Koch Industries, founded in 1940 under the name Wood River Oil & Refining Co., is based in Wichita, Kan. It says it now has a presence in 60 countries and employs about 60,000 people. Its major industries include refining, chemicals, and biofuels; process and pollution control equipment and technologies; minerals; fertilizers; commodity trading and services; forest and consumer products; and ranching.