Perret Research Team

Designing better, safer CAR T-cell therapies for cancer and other diseases.

The Perret Research Team spearheads the research arm of the Malaghan Institute’s CAR T-cell programme. Working alongside the ENABLE clinical trial, the team seeks to better understand the internal mechanisms behind CAR T-cell technology to make the therapy even safer and more effective. This includes investigating a  CAR T-cell safety switch, dual-specificity CAR T-cells targeting multiple myeloma, and new quality control methods for the cellular and genomic analysis of CAR T-cell products.

The team is developing new approaches to improve CAR T-cell fitness and to broaden the therapy’s application to a wider range of disease types, including solid tumours. In addition, they are working on incorporating mātauranga and tikanga Māori into research and clinical practices

Research areas

• CAR T-cell therapy
• Development of new CAR T-cell constructs
• Functional and genetic characterisation of CAR T-cells

Research projects

• Characterisation of transgene number and sites of CAR T-cells
• Development of CAR T-cell safety switches