Steve McCarroll, PhD

Steve is an institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and director of genomic neurobiology for the Broad’s Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research. He is also Dorothy and Milton Flier Professor of Biomedical Science and Genetics in Harvard Medical School’s Department of Genetics and Blavatnik Institute.

Steve McCarroll and the scientists in his lab use genetics, biology, and single-cell genomics to understand natural variation in the human brain and the ways in which genes and genetic variation sculpt the brain’s functions and vulnerabilities.

The lab develops new molecular and computational approaches to study variation in the genome and the brain, then applies them to try to understand brain function and disorders. A key goal in the lab’s technology efforts is to develop ways to turn more areas of brain biology into “big data” problems in which previously hidden aspects of biology are made visible to analysis. A key goal in the lab’s computational work is to develop conceptually new ways to analyze the data sets such approaches generate, with the focus on generating biologically meaningful insights. Much work in the lab tries to uncover the key molecular and cellular events underlying schizophrenia, Huntington’s disease and other brain illnesses. The hope is that such discoveries will lead to new, innovative therapeutic approaches.