UH Rainbow Division Treats Everything from Cat Allergy to Inborn Errors of Immunity

UH Clinical Update | August 2025

Princess Ogbogu, MD

In the Division of Pediatric Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, you’ll find pediatric patients being treated for asthma, seasonal allergies, environmental allergies, food allergies, immunological disorders and more. But you’ll also find something somewhat unusual – a large and growing number of adult patients.

“We have a growing adult population that we see,” says Princess Ogbogu, MD, Division Chief.

This is the result of cross-training with different patient age groups during fellowship training in the allergy and immunology specialty, Dr. Ogbogu says. And it has benefits for both adults and children struggling with asthma, allergies and immune disorders.

“We think about the immune system as our organ, so understanding what the immune cells do in different age groups really translates,” she says. “Plus, because we have expertise in both ages, patients don't have to transition care. If we start seeing you when you're a kid and you hit 18, we still see you. This gives pediatric patients peace of mind that even as they grow up, they can continue to receive care from us. In fact, we often see children, parents, grandparents, and grandchildren. We'll see the whole family. This is very important, too, when we talk about immune deficiencies because of the genetic nature of them.”

Beyond its multigenerational role in care, the Division of Pediatric Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology at UH Rainbow is also building and enhancing capabilities to help manage the growing number of patients struggling with one issue in particular -- food allergies.

“As many people know, food allergy is a growing problem,” Dr. Ogbogu says. “It's been growing exponentially over the last 20 years. It’s estimated that up to 10% of people may have a food allergy, predominantly more in children, a little less in adults. But it's a big issue.”

One feature of food allergy care at UH Rainbow is food desensitization therapy, or oral immunotherapy. A related example is a clinical trial evaluating a “peanut patch” worn on the skin to desensitize children with that particular food allergy.

However, food allergy patients also receive “wrap-around” services from the Division, including counseling and support from of a clinical food allergy psychologist – for the patient and sometimes the whole family.

“It's intended to help lessen the burden of having a chronic disease,” Dr. Ogbogu says. “For people with food allergies, it’s the day-to-day management of knowing if you eat something, you could die. For parents, when a child is at school, camp or college, they don't have the same control, and their child still has this life-threatening disease. There's also sometimes bullying that occurs for children at school. In general, there is just a lot of anxiety that goes around food allergy.”

For patients with other health problems -- asthma and other allergic conditions, Dr. Ogbogu says she’s enthusiastic about the new, immune-targeted biologics -- injection medicines that are meant to address the immune pathways that are affected in asthma or allergies.

“Those have been really a game changer with asthma,” she says. “Before, you had to have your inhaler with you always. Now these medications have really changed the landscape.”

Certain patients with immunological disorders being treated in the Division of Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology at UH Rainbow also have a unique benefit – being treated at our Jeffrey Modell Diagnostic Center for Primary Immunodeficiencies – recognized in the field as a center of excellence. Primary immunodeficiency causes children and adults to have infections that come back frequently or are unusually hard to cure.

Within this Center is the Inborn Errors of Immunity Clinic, directed by JP Lopes, MD.

“We do genetics, immune deficiency testing and treatment and plans and management,” Dr. Ogbogu says.  “It’s a lot of quarterbacking because these tend to be extremely complicated patients. Specialists like the hematologist, gastroenterologist and pulmonologist rely on the immunologist to direct what's going on with that patient's care.”

Dr. Ogbogu says she and her colleagues in the Division enjoy the opportunity to bring their expertise to patients confronting this wide variety of allergy and immunology health problems – no matter how simple or complex.

“We have everything as simple as I'm allergic to my cat to primary immunodeficiency,” she says.