A/Professor Kirsten Perrett

Biography:

A/Prof Kirsten Perrett is Co-Group Leader/Clinician Scientist Fellow in the Population Allergy Group and Deputy Director of the Melbourne Children's Trial Centre at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Paediatric Allergist/Vaccinologist in the Department of Allergy and Immunology at the Royal Children's Hospital; and Principal Fellow in the Department of Paediatrics at The University of Melbourne.

Kirsten has over 16 years of experience in leading Investigator-led and Industry-sponsored clinical trials in vaccinology and allergy. Her PhD on persistence of immunity and immunological memory to meningococcal vaccines was done at the Oxford Vaccine Group (University of Oxford, UK) and NHMRC post-doctoral fellowship on maternal immunisation at the Vaccine and Immunisation Research Group (MCRI). Additionally, Kirsten spent a year as a Visiting Scholar with the Stanford Lucille-Packard Children's Hospital Vaccine Program (Stanford University, US) in 2013-2014.

Kirsten is passionate about Pragmatic Clinical Trials (specifically designed to directly inform clinical practice and child health) and works closely with the Melbourne Children's Trial Centre. She leads a program of RCTs of medical therapy for the treatment of sleep disordered breathing (MIST, MIST+), and another investigating novel strategies to minimise immunisation pain (MIP, MIPY, MIPO).

In 2018, Kirsten moved her focus toFood Allergy where she has developed and leads a large program of RCTs for the prevention and early intervention/treatment of food allergy (VITALITY, TreEAT, LMNOP). She collaborates on other large NHMRC funded food allergy prevention RCTs (PrEggNuts, Optimum and Pebbles), observational cohort studies (HealthNuts) and research exploring vaccine allergy, immunological mechanisms underlying allergic disease pathogenesis and improving food allergy diagnosis.

She has been awarded over $30M in research grants and is a Chief Investigator of the NHMRC Centre for Food and Allergy Research.

Awards:

2021: Investigator Award, National Health and Medical Research Council (2022-2026)
2017: Clinician-Scientist Fellowship, Murdoch Children's Research Institute (2018-2022)
2012: Chancellor's Prize nomination for PhD thesis, The University of Melbourne
2012: Dean's Award for Excellence in a PhD thesis, The University of Melbourne
2012: Early Career Fellowship, Health Professional (part-time), National Health and Medical Research Council (2013-2017)
2012: Career Development Award, Murdoch Children's Research Institute (2013-2017)

Projects:

Vitality: Can Vitamin D supplementation in infants prevent food allergy in the first year of life?
TreEAT: Can early introduction of tree nuts in infants with peanut and/or egg allergy prevent tree nut allergy?
LMNOP: Low-dose Multi-Nut Oral Immunotherapy for Pre-schoolers
D-Vex: Can Vitamin D Treatment Help Treat Atopic Dermatitis in Young Children?
MIST/MIST+: Can medical therapy improve sleep disordered breathing in children?
MIP/MIPY/MIPO: Minimising Immunisation Pain in Children
Incidence of type 1 diabetes in Australian children before and after the introduction of the rotavirus vaccine: a case-control linkage study

PERRETT KP, Jachno K, Nolan TM, Harrison LC. Rotavirus vaccination and the incidence of type 1 diabetes in children. JAMA Pediatrics Published online January 22, 2019. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2018.457

Cheung A, Choo S, PERRETT KP. Vaccine Allergy? Skin testing and challenge at a tertiary pediatric hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology In Practice, 2019 Jan 22. pii: S2213-2198(19)30078-9. doi: 10.1016/j.jaip.2019.01.025

Koplin J, PERRETT KP, Sampson H. Diagnosing Peanut Allergy With Fewer Oral Food Challenges Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology In Practice, 2019 Feb;7(2):375-380. doi: 10.1016/j.jaip.2018.11.010. Epub 2018 Dec 21

McHugh L, Marshall H, PERRETT KP, Nolan T, Wood N, Lambert S, Richmond P, Ware R, Binks P, Binks M, Andrews R. The safety of influenza and pertussis vaccination in pregnancy in a cohort of Australian mother-infant pairs, 2012-2015: The FluMum study. Clinical Infectious Diseases Volume 68, Issue 3, 23 November 2018, Pages 402–408, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciy517

Wood N, Nolan T, Marshall H, Richmond P, Gibbs E, PERRETT KP, McIntyre P. Acellular pertussis vaccine at birth in the maternal pertussis vaccine era – evidence from a large randomised controlled clinical trial. JAMA Pediatrics. 2018;172(11):1045-1052. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2018.2349

Cheng DR, Elia S, PERRETT KP Immunisations under sedation at a tertiary paediatric hospital in Melbourne, Australia from 2012-2016. Vaccine 2018 Jun 14;36(25):3681-3685. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2018.05.018.

Baxter C-M, Clothier HJ, PERRETT KP Potential Immediate Hypersensitivity Reactions Following Immunization in Preschool Aged Children in Victoria, Australia. Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics 2018 Apr 6:1-10. doi/full/10.1080/21645515.2018.1460293

Nixon GM, Kubba H, PERRETT KP Time to open our eyes? A challenge to the role of polysomnography for trials in paediatric sleep disordered breathing. Journal Clinical Sleep Medicine 2018 Mar 15; 14(3): 489–490. doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.7014

PERRETT KP, Nolan TM. Immunization During Pregnancy: Impact on the Infant. Paediatric Drugs. 2017 May 16. doi: 10.1007/s40272-017-0231-7

PERRETT KP, Jin C, Clutterbuck E, John TM, Winter AP, Kibwana E, Yu LM, Curtis N, Pollard AJ. B-cell memory to serogroup C meningococcal conjugate vaccine in childhood and response to booster: little association with serum IgG antibody . Journal of Immunology. 2012 August, 189(5): 2673-81

PERRETT KP, Winter AP, Kibwana E, Jin C, John TM, Yu LM, Borrow R, Curtis N, Pollard AJ. Antibody persistence after serogroup C meningococcal conjugate immunisation of United Kingdom primary-school children in 1999-2000 and response to a booster: a phase 4 clinical trial. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2010 June, 50(12): 1601-10

Pollard AJ, PERRETT KP, Beverley PC. Maintaining protection against invasive bacteria with protein-polysaccharide conjugate vaccines. Nature Reviews Immunology. 2009 March, 9: 213-220

Funding: