Associate Professor Kirsten Perrett

Associate Professor Kirsten Perrett (MBBS Hons, FRACP, PhD) is Co-Group Leader of the Population Allergy Group and Clinician Scientist Fellow in the Melbourne Children’s Trial Centre, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute; Paediatric Allergist and Vaccinologist, Departments of Allergy and Immunology and General Medicine, Royal Children’s Hospital; and Honorary Principal Fellow, University of Melbourne.

Kirsten has 15+ years of experience heading investigator-led and industry-sponsored clinical trials. 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 (VIRGO, MCRI) and Stanford Lucille-Packard Children’s Hospital Vaccine Program (Stanford University, US).

Whilst recognised internationally as a clinical trialist, recent years have seen Kirsten’s focus move from prevention strategies for infectious disease to food allergy. She co-leads her team of 40 (including 6 post-doctoral researchers and 7 PhD students) in a program of research investigating, testing and translating new strategies for the prevention, diagnosis and early intervention/treatment of food allergy. A chief investigator on over $13 million in competitive, government, philanthropic and industry research funding; Kirsten has also published 60 peer-reviewed manuscripts including papers in The Lancet and JAMA.

External links:

• MCRI Profile
• The University of Melbourne Profile