Steven A Carr. Ph.D - Brief Bio

Dr. Steve Carr is Director of Proteomics at the Broad Institute
of MIT and Harvard. He is internationally recognized as a leader in the development
of novel proteomics methods and in their application in biology and medicine. The
ca. 20 person research staff of the Broad Institute Proteomics Group consists of experts in
proteomics and separation sciences, biologists, computational biologists, clinical fellows,
postdoctoral associates and students. We collaborates with scientists throughout the greater
Broad community (Broad Institute, Harvard, Harvard Medical School, and the 17 Harvard
affiliated hospitals) to apply state-of-the art proteomics technology to address compelling
questions in biology, chemistry and clinical medicine. Major areas of focus include: 1) globally
defining proteins and their modification states and quantification of their changes during cell-
signaling, differentiation, development and disease; 2) identifying protein targets of drugs
and drug-like molecules; 3) discovery and quantitative verification of biomarkers of disease;
4) defining protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions and how these interactions are
modulated during differentiation, development and disease; and 5) developing new, broadly
enabling proteomic technologies. The majority of the 40+ collaborative projects that the
group engages in annually involve large-scale, high-throughput data generation and analysis.
Numerous such studies have been published by the group and can be found in references cited.

Research in Steve’s lab focuses on developing and optimizing methods to detect and quantify
posttranslational modifications (phosphorylation, acetylation, methylation, etc.) in the proteome,
develop strategies for precise relative quantification of proteins in complex mixtures at the
discovery level, improving informatics for peptide and protein assignment using MS data,
and integrating MS-derived data with genomic data. A major focus of Dr. Carr’s group is on
developing and applying novel, quantitative approaches for biomarker discovery and validation
to ultimately provide biomarkers for cancers, heart disease, infectious diseases and metabolic
disorders. These studies involve analysis of complex biological specimens, including CSF,
tumor interstitial fluid, tissue and plasma, using protein chemistry and advanced separation
methods together with state-of-the-art mass spectrometry. Research in Dr. Carr’s lab led to
the first demonstrations that MRM-MS combined with simplified fractionation can be used to
robustly detect and quantify any protein in blood present at levels at or above the nanogram/
mL range. Steve and his team led the first large scale interlaboratory comparison of MRM-MS
for quantification of proteins in blood (Addona et al. Nature Biotechnol. 2009). As co-PI of one
of the five funded CPTAC centers, Dr. Carr and his co-PI Dr. Amanda Paulovich, FHCRC along
with members of their groups developed over 280 assays for cancer-related proteins using
peptide immunoaffinity enrichment combined with MRM-MS.

Prior to joining the Broad Institute in 2004, Steve held scientific leadership positions in the
pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries as Director of Computational and Structural
Sciences at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals and Senior Director of Protein Science and
Technology at Millennium Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, MA.

Dr. Carr has over 170 publications on development and use of proteomics and biological
mass spectrometry. He is an associate editor of Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, and
he has served on the editorial boards of Analytical Chemistry and Protein Science, among
others. At MCP, Dr. Carr leads an ongoing effort to develop and refine guidelines for reporting
peptide, protein and posttranslational modification identification results and for publication of
clinical proteomics papers.