TIME100 2026 Honours Professor Lack
We are incredibly proud to share that Professor Gideon Lack, Founder and Lead Clinician of the LACK Allergy Clinic has been named in TIME's annual list of the most influential leaders in healthcare, the 2026 TIME100.
The TIME100 Health spotlights 100 individuals whose work is shaping the future of health around the world. Professor Lack's inclusion recognises a career dedicated to transforming how we prevent food allergies in children, and the real-world impact that work is having on families today.
What this recognition is really about
For Professor Lack, the honour is inseparable from the families and the science that made it possible.
"When we began the LEAP study, the medical advice was to avoid giving peanuts to young infants in order to prevent peanut allergy. We showed the opposite was true," Professor Lack said. "But research only matters if it reaches the families who need it."
His landmark Learning Early About Peanut Allergy (LEAP) study, published in 2015, provided the first robust evidence that introducing peanuts early in a child's diet could reduce the risk of developing peanut allergy by up to 81%. The findings prompted a reversal of allergy prevention guidelines worldwide and reshaped how paediatricians, allergists, and parents approach early feeding.
From research to real-world results
The impact of that work continues to grow. A 2025 study from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) used electronic health records to demonstrate that since the implementation of early-introduction guidelines, clinical rates of peanut allergy in infants may have fallen by 43%.
"The CHOP study suggests that for every 200 infants who follow these early introduction protocols, one child is saved from a lifelong food allergy," Professor Lack noted. "We aren't just managing allergies anymore; now we are actively preventing them."
Why this matters to the families we see every day
Beyond the research, Professor Lack remains a practising clinician.
Here at the LACK Clinic, we work directly with families navigating the full spectrum of childhood allergies, from eczema and food allergy in infants to complex multi-allergen cases in older children.
The clinic specialises in the care of children from birth, offering allergy testing, diagnosis, and treatment including oral immunotherapy and early allergen introduction protocols.
"The allergy epidemic is one of the defining public health challenges of our time," Professor Lack said. "What we've learned is that we can intervene early. We can change the trajectory for children. That is what drives everything we do for infants and children at the clinic."
The impact in numbers
Professor Lack's LEAP study demonstrated an 81% reduction in peanut allergy among high-risk infants who consumed peanut early. Current estimates suggest that for every 200 infants who follow early introduction guidelines, one case of food allergy may be prevented.
The full TIME100 Health list and related tributes appear in the 23 February issue of TIME, available on newsstands from Friday 13 February, and online now at time.com/time100health.
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