The Mass General Department of Neurosurgery is pleased to announce that following a year-long national search, Bob S. Carter, MD, PhD, FAANS, the former chair and chief of Neurosurgery Service at the University of California, San Diego, has been named as the new chief of the MGH Department of Neurosurgery, effective Feb. 1, 2017. Dr. Carter succeeds Robert Martuza, MD, who will remain an active and vital member of the department, continuing his focus on research and serving as a mentor.

Dr. Carter brings with him a wealth of knowledge, experience and expertise that we know will be extremely beneficial as we continue to grow, shape and expand the department in the coming years. Dr. Carter first discovered his passion for neurosurgery at the MGH as a neurosurgery resident with Nicholas Zervas, MD, former chief of MGH Neurosurgery, and then spent his early faculty years at the hospital with Dr. Martuza. We are happy to welcome him back to the MGH in his new role.

After earning his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and his doctorate in genetic epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 1992, Dr. Carter was a surgical intern at the MGH, then a resident in neurosurgery. He also was a post-doctoral fellow in gene therapy at the Whitehead Institute at MIT and Boston Children's Hospital.
In his early faculty years at the MGH, he later participated in our year-long Administrative Leadership Program and was the director of Education for our Department of Neurosurgery from 2005 to 2010, while serving as an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.

In 2010, Dr. Carter was named professor and chief of Neurosurgery at UC San Diego where he led formation of the first hospital Department of Neurosurgery and co-founded the UC San Diego NeuroInstitute.

Dr. Carter co-leads the UC San Diego’s Brain Tumor Center and is immediate past chair of the UC San Diego Health Sciences Faculty Council. During his career, Dr. Carter has specialized in surgery for benign and malignant brain tumors, brain vascular lesions, and brain aneurysms.

His extensive scientific work includes the development of the first reported EGFRvlll directed CAR T-cell therapy for glioblastoma, and a long interest in the characterization of exosomes in glioblastoma.

Dr. Carter is a fellow of the Academy of Neurological Surgeons, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, and a member of numerous national and international professional medical organizations. His academic work has been cited more than 15,000 times in scientific literature.

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