Professor  Valerie Verhasselt, MD, PhD, Professor, Director of the Larsson-Rosenquist Centre of Immunology and Breastfeeding at the University of Western Australia (UWA) and Immunology and Breastfeeding team at the Telethon Kids Institute (TKI).

Her vision is to make human milk the gold standard for child health. She wants to ensure that  Human milk promotes child health worldwide and where appropriate, preventive and therapeutic strategies for children are inspired by human milk

Her mission is to build a holistic understanding of how breastfeeding practices and human milk composition influence healthy immune development. This knowledge will enable healthcare providers to make recommendations to parents to improve child health worldwide.

VV has 20 years of experience in translational research on the impact of breastfeeding on immune development and child health. She wants to find out what it takes to make breast milk more likely to prevent conditions such as allergies, malaria or stunted growth. She revolutionised the field of allergy prevention through early oral allergen exposure with a landmark study published in Nature Medicine in 2008. This study contributed to the recent major changes in breastfeeding guidelines for food allergy prevention co-authored by Prof Verhasselt (European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology food allergy prevention guidelines). Her creative mind, expertise in breastfeeding immunology and global collaborations have led to the publication of a landmark study on a novel concept for malaria prevention through natural vaccination via breast milk. Her leadership in clinical trials aimed at improving child health through early nutrition is demonstrated in her current study of a birth cohort of 1000 children, investigating the role of colostrum in growth, allergy and infection prevention. This knowledge will inform changes in clinical practice and drive policy changes, such as increased budgets for community and health services to support early breastfeeding.

Prof. Verhasselt has presented more than 40 invited lectures to international scientific meetings in the last 3 years and engages in regular speaking engagements to local and international meetings of stakeholders in child nutrition. She co-coordinates and lectures at the course “Breastfeeding- A Foundation for Human Health” held at The University of Western Australia. Prof. Verhasselt has authored more than 80 publications, many published in top 1% Journal (Nature Medicine, JAMA Pediatrics, Gut, Lancet Infectious Disease, Allergy, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology).

Her research receives major financial support by the Larsson Rosenquist Foundation.

Importantly, ethics, respect, generosity and humanity are the drivers of her scientific career.

Director of the Larsson-Rosenquist Centre  for Immunology and Breastfeeding at UWA and the Telethon Kids Institute 

Coordinates and lectures at the course “Breastfeeding - A Foundation for Human Health” held at The University of Western Australia

Larsson Rosenquist donation

Future Health Research and Innovation Fund

WA Child Research Fund

Channel 7 Telethon trust

Raine Foundation

Establishing the role of human milk in healthy child development

A healthy immune system mounts appropriate and efficient immune responses that protect us from pathogens, cancer, allergies, autoimmunity, inflammatory bowel disease and malnutrition. The objective of our research is to gain a deeper understanding of how colsotrum feeding and human milk composition support the child's developing immune system and contribute to shaping the immune trajectory and lifelong health. 

• The Benefits of colostrum on long term health

At least a third of newborns worldwide receive formula in hospital during their first days of life. This results in newborns missing out on the full dose of colostrum, the “yellow milk” dedicated to the first 2-3 days of a newborn, produced in small quantities and enriched in many bioactive compounds.  While the composition of colostrum is well-studied, its specific health benefits remain poorly documented, except for the prevention of neonatal mortality in low-resource settings.To address this knowledge gap, we are conducting preclinical and clinical research in birth cohorts of both low- and high-income countries (LMIC and HIC) to investigate whether exclusive colostrum feeding is required to settle the newborn on a healthy trajectory. Specifically, we are investigating the importance of colostrum for the prevention of allergy, growth failure, obesity, helminth infection and skin disease.

This knowledge will support the implementation of WHO guidelines for effective colostrum feeding and pave the way for the discovery of novel colostrum-inspired strategies for the prevention of childhood disease taht are developmentally appropriate.

• Target breastmilk composition to maximise child health through breastfeeding

Some diseases such as Allergies and Malaria represent a huge burden for children and society and are not prevented at the population level by breast milk. However, the knowledge of human milk content in numerous and various bioactive compounds highlights a high potential in doing so. This suggests that modifying breast milk composition by maternal interventions may increase the chance of promoting child health through breastfeeding.

Promote Immunity: We are exploring a novel paradigm where the transfer of proteins from pathogens in breast milk would result in infant vaccination (we discussed this hypothesis in (Marchant et al., 2017; van den Elsen et al., 2020). Following our publication in JAMA Paediatrics (van den Elsen et al., 2020), where we proved the premises for this concept in the context of Malaria, we are now further establishing the relationship between malaria antigen shedding in breast milk and infant immunisation in a prospective birth cohort of 400 mothers in Uganda. The results of this project will open up avenues for malaria prevention, such as promoting the shedding of malaria antigens in breast milk to best immunise the child.

Promote tolerance: In the context of allergic disease prevention, we continue our research on how human milk can educate the infant's immune system towards immune tolerance to allergens. Our latest research is taking advantage of a randomised control trial, SYMBA, that is assessing the effect of a maternal dietary intervention of prebiotic supplementation during pregnancy and lactation, to reduce allergic disease outcomes in infants. We are addressing the impact of this intervention on the milk composition and we aim to establish whether there is a breast milk composition that is associated with a lesser risk of allergy in children.