Dr Rachel Perret
Team Leader - Perret Laboratory
BsC (Hons), PhD (Otago)
Dr Rachel Perret heads the Perret Lab, part of the Malaghan Institute's CAR T-cell programme and is co-lead of the Malaghan's cancer immunotherapies research pillar. Rachel studied microbiology at the University of Otago before doing her PhD in immunology with Professor Franca Ronchese at the Malaghan Institute. She spent several years working at the Ludwig Center for Cancer Research at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, USA, to complete her postdoctoral training. In January 2020, Rachel returned to the Malaghan Institute to join the CAR T-cell research programme.
Her research interests lie in investigating how the immune system can be trained to fight cancer more effectively. She is particularly focused on engineering and redirecting T lymphocytes to recognise cancer cell proteins more effectively, to specifically and safely target tumours for destruction. She has worked extensively on the gene-therapy of T-cells using natural T-cell receptor (TCR) genes and is now adapting and extending that knowledge working with chimeric antigen receptors (CARs).
As part of the CAR T-cell research programme, her team are investigating the different costimulatory signalling pathways that control the internal workings of CAR T-cells. They aim to identify beneficial aspects that can be enhanced, and pinpoint any weaknesses that they can work on fixing. This will allow the team to design even better, safer, and more broadly applicable CAR T-cell therapies for both blood cancers and solid tumours.
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Publications
2025
Wilson A, Dasyam N, O'Hagan F, Farrell D, Turner C, Jay A, Schmidt A, Beddow R, Lillis T, Chin T, Perret R, McCulley M, Weinkove R (2025). Jurkat T-cell lines exhibit marked genomic instability affecting karyotype, mutational profile, gene expression, immunophenotype and function. Sci Rep. 15(1):22426
2024
Blud D, Rubio-Reyes P, Perret R, Weinkove R (2024). Tuning CAR T-cell therapies for efficacy and reduced toxicity. Semin Hematol. 61(5):333-344.
2023
Nouri, Y., Weinkove, R., & Perret, R. (2023). An in vitro model to assess CRS potential of CAR T cells using a tumor cell line and autologous monocytes. Current Protocols, 3, e864
2021
Nouri Y, Weinkove R, Perret R (2021). T-cell intrinsic Toll-like receptor signaling: implications for cancer immunotherapy and CAR T-cells. J Immunother Cancer. 9(11):e003065