Kara Vine-Perrow

In 2014 Associate Professor Vine-Perrow established the Targeted Cancer Therapeutics Research Laboratory based in the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute at the University of Wollongong (UOW). Her independent research program is focused on (i) understanding the mechanisms that drive chemotherapeutic drug resistance in cancer and (ii) the development and characterization of novel nanomedicines and medical devices for site specific drug delivery.
Conventional drug administration often requires high dosages or repeated administration to initiate a therapeutic response. In the context of cancer, this can result in the patient experiencing toxic side effects and resistance to therapy, leading to cessation of treatment and ultimately, disease relapse. To address these problems, A/Prof Vine-Perrow's lab designs customisable drug delivery platforms that enhance drug solubility, enable targeted delivery, and provide improved therapeutic efficacy with reduced toxicity profiles. Specifically her Group focuses on the development of (i) drug encapsulated polymeric micelles to overcome multidrug resistance in cancer; (ii) dual drug eluting polymeric implants for the treatment of locally advanced pancreatic cancer; and (iii) targeted liposomes for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer. More recently the Vine-Perrow group has applied their drug delivery knowledge to neurodegenerative diseases, specifically Motor Neurone Disease, to improve the delivery of antisense oligonucleotides to the CNS using calcium phosphate lipid nanoparticles.
A.Prof Vine-Perrow has longstanding experience in the development of pharmaceutical formulations for small molecule drugs, proteins/antibodies and nucleic acids. Importantly she has built the necessary infrastructure to characterise these technology platforms both in vitro and in vivo to expedite clinical translation.