David Perea Pérez

David Perea Pérez holds a Bachelor's degree in Microbiology (Extraordinary End-of-Degree Award, 8.98/10) from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB, 2015–2019), a Master of Science in Advanced Immunology from the University of Barcelona and UAB (2019–2020, 8.9/10), and a PhD in Advanced Immunology Cum Laude from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (2021–2024), supervised by Dr. María José Buzón at Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Barcelona. His doctoral research focused on the functional characterisation of tissue-resident NK cells in tonsil and gut during early HIV infection, employing spectral and multiparametric flow cytometry, FACS, 3D collagen matrices, ex vivo HIV infection models, and single-cell RNA sequencing under BSL-2+/3 conditions. During this period, he also contributed to SARS-CoV-2 research, participating in the identification of antiviral drug candidates using a human lung tissue model.

Following his doctorate, he undertook a postdoctoral appointment in the Systems Immunology Laboratory of Dr. Ang Cui at Harvard School of Dental Medicine (Boston, USA, March–June 2025), where he designed protocols for the in vivo characterisation of cytokine responses in γδ T cells and NK cells using murine models and scRNA-seq, exploring the therapeutic potential of cytokine modulation in tumour immunity and inflammatory bowel disease.

Since September 2025, he is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the laboratory of Prof. Michael O'Dwyer at the Lambe Institute for Translational Research, University of Galway, funded by the National Breast Cancer Research Institute (NBCRI). His current work focuses on the development of next-generation engineered NK cell-based immunotherapies targeting multiple myeloma and triple-negative breast cancer, combining CRISPR-based gene editing and CAR NK cell approaches with 3D tumour spheroid models and pooled functional screening platforms to enhance NK cell cytotoxicity and tumour infiltration.

His work has been published in journals including Science Advances, Cell Reports Medicine, Communications Biology, and PLOS Pathogens, and presented at international conferences including CROI (Denver, 2024; Seattle, 2023), the GeSIDA National Congress (A Coruña, 2023; Sitges, 2022), and the XVI Congress of the Catalan Society of Immunology (Barcelona, 2022). He was also invited as a speaker at the ScienHub Hot Topics in HIV symposium (Barcelona, 2024).

Dr. Perea's research sits at the intersection of innate immunology, NK cell biology, and translational oncology. His work spans two complementary axes: the fundamental characterisation of NK cell dysfunction and tissue residency in the context of viral infection, and the applied engineering of NK cells as next-generation cellular immunotherapies against solid tumours and haematological malignancies, with a focus on CRISPR-based gene editing, CAR NK cell development, and high-throughput functional screening platforms.