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Milk of Kindness
Dr. Julia Upton ’93 is helping break new ground on food allergies in children JULIA UPTON ’93 HAS WANTED to be a doctor for as
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Dr. Julia Upton ’93
In recognition of her clinical and research work, Julia is an associate professor at the University of Toronto, the past food allergy and anaphylaxis section head of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, and a member of the health care advisory board of Food Allergy Canada, a patient advocacy organization. She holds leadership roles at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the Ontario Medical Association. She is also working on projects researching the prevalence of COVID-19 in hot spots, the socioeconomic risk factors for the virus, and safely vaccinating children with allergies. She says HSC led her to develop interests in many disciplines, which helps her today. Back then, she was the yearbook editor—she fondly remembers working alongside teacher Doug Moore—but also had the opportunity to play sports, all of which were encouraged in addition to academic excellence, she says. “You have the opportunity to do a lot of different things that may not be your direct strength,” Julia says. “These experiences come back to help you.”
The Alumni Hall of Excellence
Photos by Frank Zochil
long as she can remember. “Since I was two years old,” she says. Now, as an allergist-immunologist and clinical researcher at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, she’s living her childhood dream. She says working with children is a huge part of what drew her to the job. “I did a residency in internal medicine, which is an adult specialty, and when I was looking at subspecialties, I realized if I did allergy and clinical immunology, this would bring pediatrics back into the domain of my practice,” says Julia, who has a master’s degree in public health from Harvard University in addition to her MD from Western University. “I love helping kids to be kids,” she adds. “To be able to minimize the effect on their life of whatever medical diagnoses they have is fulfilling.” Her research is helping further this goal. She’s part of a team that advanced the understanding that the majority of children who are allergic to cow’s milk or eggs are not allergic to those foods after they have been baked into items like muffins. It’s work that is making a huge difference in the day-today lives of people with food allergies. She is also researching immunotherapy for food, in which small amounts of the food a child is allergic to are eaten under medical supervision to treat the food allergy. “Some of my work is about, How do you best apply new findings and new treatments to the care of the patient?” says Julia, who lives in Toronto with her husband Dave MacAulay and their children Clara, 12, and Donovan, 10. “For example, how do you know who can tolerate heated forms of milk and who can’t, and how can we make food allergy treatments more widely available?”