Our Labs

Claire L. Carter, Ph.D., is an Assistant Member of the Center for Discovery and Innovation; Assistant Professor of Pathology at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine; and Co-Director of the Mass Spectrometry and Analytical Pharmacology Shared Resource at the NCI-designated Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr. Carter has a multidisciplinary background that encompasses biomedical sciences, clinical pathology and 15 years of mass spectrometry and mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) expertise. This rare combination of disciplines has uniquely positioned Dr. Carter at the chemistry-biology interface to advance the translation of biomedical research from the bench to the clinic. She has made seminal contributions in the fields of mass spectrometry, normal-tissue radiation injury, and precision pharmacology.

The Carter lab is multifaceted with interests in:

• Identifying lipid and glycan pathway alterations within tissue microenvironments, which can then be targeted with novel therapeutics and validated as biomarkers to inform on diagnostics, prognostics and therapeutic efficacy.
• Precision pharmacology using mass spectrometry imaging and other multiplex imaging techniques to simultaneously map therapeutic accumulation (spatial pharmacokinetics) and biomolecules that can inform on drug efficacy and toxicity (spatial pharmacodynamics).
• Method development to advance the applications of mass spectrometry imaging-based technologies.

Our primary area of research is pediatric neuro-oncology. Dr. Carter, together with Dr. Derek Hanson (Section Chief of Pediatric Neuro-oncology at the Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital at Hackensack University Medical Center) and with support from the Tackle Kids Cancer Foundation, lead New Jersey’s first translational research program dedicated to finding cures for children with deadly brain tumors.