Physician researcher mixes AI, immunology and analytics to free patients from food allergies
In a laboratory at the Food Allergy Institute (FAI) in Long Beach, Calif., stacks of sealed plastic storage containers full of gummy candies of various colors line a long shelf. A label on each container displays the name of a different allergen: “peanut” for orange gummies; “mustard” for yellow; “pine” and “flax” for teal and magenta, respectively. The fruit-flavored gummies, which contain small proteins from each allergen are part of the institute’s novel treatment plan for children and adults with severe food allergies.
“The scope of our work, involving data analytics, artificial intelligence and immunology, has totally changed the way we do things. And it shows how thinking outside the box and being an expert in multiple fields allows one to advance things at a pace that has not been seen before,” says Inderpal Randhawa, founder and CEO of FAI, who earned a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences in 1997.