The Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) provides personalized care for pediatric and adult patients with immune diseases ranging from common food allergies and asthma to rare genetic disorders such as hereditary angioedema, common variable immunodeficiency, and mastocytosis. Patients benefit from our multidisciplinary approach to care, subspecialized clinical programs, and cutting-edge research. Led by Dr. Joshua Boyce, the division includes 22 board-certified physicians who are also faculty members at Harvard Medical School and an outstanding research faculty with expertise in innate immunity (Boyce Lab, Balestrieri Lab, Dwyer Lab), lymphocyte biology (Brennan Lab, Wesemann Lab, Chen, Tong, Zuo), epithelial biology (Bankova Lab, Barrett Lab), clinical sciences (Laidlaw Lab, Buchheit, Louisas, Foer) and genomics (Lee-Sarwar, Wang).
Why BWH Allergy and Clinical Immunology?
- Expert Allergy and Clinical Immunology services by Brigham and Women’s Hospital physicians listed among Boston’s Top Doctors by Boston Magazine
- Access to state-of-the-art treatments, trials, and studies through specialized clinics
- Four Greater Boston offices, including convenient community locations
- Virtual visits for greater safety and convenience
Division History
Allergy and Clinical Immunology efforts predate the foundation of Brigham and Women’s Hospital from three Harvard Hospitals in 1980. These efforts were headed by K. Frank Austen from their inception in the early 1970s until 2011. In collaboration with Dr. Albert Sheffer, Dr. Austen established an Allergy Clinic and an Allergy Training Program, one of the premier programs in the country. Dr. Joshua Boyce assumed leadership of the Allergy Section in 2011 and established the Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in the Department of Medicine in 2019.
Basic science discoveries have included seminal work on the identification of cysteinyl leukotrienes and their receptors in anaphylaxis and asthma, identification of exercise-induced anaphylaxis as a form of physical allergy, elucidation of mediators implicated in hereditary angioedema, and elucidation of human mast cell growth factors and developmental pathways.
BWH Allergists and Immunologists have led national and international panels providing clinical guidelines such as the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s (NHLBI) Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Asthma, the Global Initiative for Asthma Committee (GINA), the Expert Panel for the Diagnosis and Management of Food Allergies, and the Joint Taskforce for Drug Allergy.
Cutting edge clinical trials conducted by Division investigators include Imatinib for the treatment of severe asthma, Avapritinib for the treatment of systemic mastocytosis, Prasugrel for the treatment of aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease.
