Immunotherapy or the practice of stimulating the body’s immune response to treat disease or tolerize a patient to a certain allergen has been around for quite some time.
Source: http://www.dbv-technologies.com
The researchers at DBV Technologies (http://www.dbv-technologies.com) are using this approach to try to treat a number of different allergies, in this case, epicutaneously or through the skin. For a more in-depth explanation of how epicutaneous immunotherapy works, just click on the following link: http://www.dbv-technologies.com/en/epit.
As a vehicle for this approach, DBV Technologies have created the Viaskin patch. You can see how it works below, with its adhesive crown which attaches it firmly to the wearer’s skin, its titanium backing, upon which the antigens are sprayed and the condensation chamber that is created once worn. This condensation chamber effect is crucial, as this is what turns the dry antigens into a liquid solution which can then pass through the skin and into the body’s Langerhans cells (amongst the most tolerogenic cells in the whole human body). Once this happens, the process of getting the body slowly used to antigens without them triggering an allergic reaction can begin.