Caroline Elizabeth Shamu, Ph.D.

One of my main roles at Harvard Medical School is as Director of the ICCB-Longwood Screening Facility. ICCB-L supports both small molecule and RNAi screening, and was one of the first high throughput screening facilities established in an academic setting.

Research:

One of my main roles at Harvard Medical School is as Director of the ICCB-Longwood Screening Facility. ICCB-L supports both small molecule and RNAi screening, and was one of the first high throughput screening facilities established in an academic setting.  The screening facility operates using an investigator-initiated, staff-assisted screening model: users provide assays, their supplies, and do the bulk of the work for their screens. For example, users grow cells, purify proteins, plate cells or protein in assay plates, and read out assays using plate readers or imagers. ICCB-L staff provide advice and assistance at every step of the screening process: they advise on assay strategies and assay miniaturization, handle and transfer libraries to assay plates, help run automation for some assays when complicated automation protocols are required, and provide support for data analysis.

My group also works to develop data standards and repositories for large-scale datasets from high-throughput assays.  For example, my group developed the open source Screensaver laboratory information management system (Tolopko et al. 2010) for storing screen data generated at ICCB-L.  Via our participation in the NIH-funded LINCS program, we have played a leadership role in helping to develop metadata standards and public repositories for the emerging field of systems pharmacology.