For 25 years, Jamie Kabourek has helped track and educate on food allergens.
As the resource specialist with the Food Allergy Research and Resource Program, she has continuously kept up on the research concerning food allergies — research that has surged, especially in the last decade.
She was in the audience at a conference in 2015 when a British study was revealed to have found that allergy-prone babies who were regularly fed peanuts were about 80% less likely to develop a peanut allergy by their 5th birthday.
In many ways, the study turned allergy research on its head, said Kabourek, who is also a registered dietitian.
“When I first started, there was very little information on food allergies,” she said. “Today, you can hardly go without reading about food allergies or seeing something in the news. It's really exploded, and the research has come a long way also.”
Her 25 years of experience puts Kabourek among the 900-plus employees being honored at Celebration of Service, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Oct. 3 in the Coliseum.
Kabourek grew up in Nebraska and got a bachelor’s from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln before earning a master’s at the University of Kansas Medical Center. She’s found her work rewarding, and constantly changing.
“I initially thought I would go to medical school, but I learned some of those classes weren’t for me, but I wanted to be in health care,” she said. “My mom was a nurse, and my grandma had diabetes when I was growing up — uncontrolled diabetes, looking back at it — and I think she had a big influence on me and my mom, too.”
Kabourek works side by side with researchers and lab technicians who help keep foods safe for those with food allergies. As the resource specialist, she often connects food companies and health professionals with the research experts.
“My role is really in education,” she said. “I do presentations, and they run the gamut, from other dietitians to health professionals to food companies and conferences. I am also a member of worldwide network of dietitians that work in food allergies. We collaborate on research projects, do writing projects, do workshops and presentations.”
She also keeps a food allergy research database up to date, adding new scholarly research on the subject as it is published.
“We house them all in one place so that our employees, students and food companies who have questions about ingredients and things, can access the research,” she said. “At first, we had less information, but we knew the flood gates were opening. When I started, we had about 1,500 papers in the database, and we’re up to 37,000 papers. There are so many different facets now, from identifying proteins in food, to treatment and preventative strategies to guidance. I’m always learning something new.”
Kabourek and FARRP staff have also helped University Dining set up the app that helps identify safe foods for students with allergies and assisted with the extensive training required for Moxie’s Gluten-Free Café.
Following her dietitian internship in Kansas, FARRP was Kabourek’s first job. She’s stayed because of the collegiality and opportunity to continue learning.
“I started at a really good time, when research was really taking off,” she said. “Twenty-five years later, the breadth of information that we now have is quite amazing, I appreciate the opportunity to keep learning, and I really enjoy educating people and sharing what I’ve learned.”
