Immunology Program

The Justin Perry Lab

Justin Perry, PhD

The human body is estimated to remove 1% of its body mass, likely more than 200 billion cells, every day. To achieve this, we rely on a highly evolutionarily conserved process: apoptotic cell clearance or ‘efferocytosis’. Efferocytosis is essential for normal development and tissue homeostasis, but also pathogen defense and anti-tumor immunity. A single phagocyte typically ingests an entire apoptotic corpse, essentially doubling its content. Because phagocytes often ingest multiple targets in succession, we propose the existence of ‘rapid-response circuits’ composed of kinases that sense and activate in response to the change in a given solute, and solute transporters downstream of these kinases that impart the necessary flux of solutes. We believe these circuits allow phagocytes to handle the risk that corpse content poses to the homeostasis of both the phagocyte and ultimately the host. The central focus of our research program is to understand these rapid-response circuits governing how a phagocyte manages such excess cargo influx, how this relates to host immune function and homeostasis, and how these processes are exploited in cancer development and progression.

For more information, visit www.theperrylab.com

Research Projects

Projects

Featured News

SKI immunologist Justin Perry holding a fish

Justin Perry: A “Card-Carrying Alaskan” Whose Love for Science Took Him on an Unexpected Journey

Immunologist Justin Perry was recently awarded a 2021 National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award for his research. He is also a 2021 Pew Biomedical Scholar.

Publications Highlights

WNK1 enforces macrophage lineage fidelity. Trzeciak AJ, Rojas WS, Liu ZL, Krebs AS, Wang Z, Saavedra PHV, Miranda IC, Lipshutz A, Xie J, Huang CL, Overholtzer M, Glickman MS, Parkhurst CN, Vierbuchen T, Lucas CD, Perry JSA. bioRxiv. 2023 Apr 28:2023.04.26.538482. doi: 10.1101/2023.04.26.538482. Preprint. PMID: 37383948

Metabolic adaptation supports enhanced macrophage efferocytosis in limited-oxygen environments. Wang YT, Trzeciak AJ, Rojas WS, Saavedra P, Chen YT, Chirayil R, Etchegaray JI, Lucas CD, Puleston DJ, Keshari KR, Perry JSA. Cell Metabolism. 2023 Feb 7;35(2):316-331.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2022.12.005. Epub 2022 Dec 29. PMID: 36584675

First we eat, then we do everything else: The dynamic metabolic regulation of efferocytosis. Trzeciak A, Wang YT, Perry JSA. Cell Metab. 2021 Nov 2;33(11):2126-2141. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2021.08.001. Epub 2021 Aug 24. PMID: 34433074

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People

Justin Perry, PhD

Immunologist Justin Perry investigates homeostatic apoptotic cell clearance and how this process is exploited during cancer development and progression.
PhD, Washington University in St. Louis

Members

Waleska Saitz Rojas
Senior Research Technician

Zhaoquan Wang — Zhaoquan "Shasha" Wang
Graduate Student

Jesús E. Romero-Pichardo
Graduate Student

Kelvin Fadojutimi
MSK Bridge Program Scholar

Lab Alumni

Ya-Ting Wang — Ya-Ting "Emma" Wang
Postdoctoral Fellow

Zonglin Liu — Zonglin "Harvey" Liu
Research Technician

Jasmine Loveras

Administrative Assistant II

Lab Affiliations

Achievements

Mark Foundation for Cancer Research - Aspire Award
NIH Office of the Director - New Innovator Award (DP2)
Pew Charitable Trusts - Pew Biomedical Scholar
V Foundation for Cancer Research - V Scholars Award
Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy - Career Development Award

NIH/NCI Pathway to Independence Award K99/R00 (2019)
Burroughs Wellcome Fund – PDEP Award (2018)
Cancer Research Institute – Mark Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow (2018)
HHMI Hanna H. Gray Fellow Finalist (2017)

Open Positions

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Disclosures

Doctors and faculty members often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community.

MSK requires doctors and faculty members to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public.

Justin Perry discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

Atish Technologies, Inc.
Intellectual Property Rights

The information published here is a complement to other publicly reported data and is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.

This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2023 through disclosure submission in spring 2024). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.

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