Justin Perry, Ph.D., M.A., is an Assistant Member in the Immunology Program of the Sloan Kettering Institute (SKI) at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and an Assistant Professor in the Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis program at Weill Cornell Medical Center. Justin first obtained a M.A. in Clinical Psychology, followed by a Ph.D. in Immunology from Washington University in St. Louis. He then went on to complete a Postdoctoral Fellowship with Dr. Kodi Ravichandran at the University of Virginia. For his work at SKI, Justin has received a V Foundation Scholar Award, a Pew Foundation Biomedical Scholars award, a Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy Career Development Award, and the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (DP2).
Research in the Perry Lab broadly focuses on understanding mechanisms underlying ‘healthy’ clearance of dying cells, known as efferocytosis. During his postdoctoral training, he explored unanswered basic fundamental questions on the process of efferocytosis. He demonstrated that during efferocytosis, phagocytes utilize an array of solute carrier (SLC) transporters and coordinately regulate SLC usage to perform multiple interconnected physiological functions, including glucose uptake/aerobic glycolysis and lactate secretion/establishment of an anti-inflammatory milieu. The Perry Lab combines techniques from immunology, cell biology, metabolism, and informatics to address how phagocytes, such as macrophages, handle the immense burden of efferocytosis. In particular, the lab studies how a phagocyte manages the massive influx of biological material in extreme environments such as that experienced in cancer, how this relates to host immune function and homeostasis, and how these processes are exploited in cancer development and progression.
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