Susanne M. Gollin, Ph.D.

Susanne M. Gollin, Ph.D. is a clinical cytogeneticists, board certified by the American College of Medical Genetics. She is a Professor of Human Genetics, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and Professor of Otolaryngology and Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) Cytogenetics Facility; and Director of Research and Clinical Cytogenetics Consultant in the Pittsburgh Cytogenetics Laboratory.

Dr. Gollin completed her undergraduate and graduate training at Northwestern University, where she received a doctorate in Biological Sciences in 1980. She had Postdoctoral Training in Genetics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and Cell Biology and Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine. Her academic career began in 1984 as an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Pediatrics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Director of the full service Cytogenetics Laboratory at Arkansas Children's Hospital. In 1987, she was recruited to the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute to initiate a research program in cancer cytogenetics and direct the University of Pittsburgh Clinical Cytogenetics Laboratory which was later to merge with two other laboratories to become the Pittsburgh Cytogenetics Laboratory. Dr. Gollin rose through the ranks and in 2003, she was appointed Professor of Human Genetics. She continues her clinical cancer cytogenetics service in the Pittsburgh Cytogenetics Laboratory.

Throughout her career, Dr. Gollin has focused on the cytogenetic changes underlying diseases including head and neck and oral cancer, childhood and adult brain tumors, leukemia, autoimmune diseases, post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease, as well as other rare tumors and inherited disorders. Much of Dr. Gollin's research is focused on understanding the biology of these disorders with the goals of improving disease diagnosis and discovering genetic alterations that could serve as biomarkers of diagnosis and prognosis as well as targets for therapy. Over the past six years, she has been investigating the mechanism of chromosomal instability in cancer cells, including the role of the cytoskeleton in chromosomal instability and the process of gene amplification and their translational implications. She has been awarded federal, state, and foundation grants for research projects concerning genetic alterations in oral cancer and more recently, breast cancer. In addition, she has received federal funding for the purchase of state-of-the-art chromosome imaging instrumentation for the UPCI Cytogenetics Facility (a shared resource laboratory available to funded cancer researchers at the University and elsewhere) to enhance and support cytogenetic investigations in the context of a variety of cancer and other biomedical research projects.

Dr. Gollin also devotes substantial time to teaching and mentoring graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in her research laboratory in the Department of Human Genetics, training Pathology Residents and Fellows in clinical cytogenetics, at the University of Pittsburgh. Her teaching includes courses on Chromosomes and Human Disease and Genetic Techniques.

For the past decade, Dr. Gollin served as a member and then, Vice-Chair of the Allegheny County Board of Health. She also served on the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on study sections for the National Institutes of Health, and has reviewed grant proposals for the Dutch Cancer Society. Dr. Gollin serves as a consultant to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, where she is also a member of the Immunology Devices Panel, a Medical Devices Advisory Committee in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health. She is a diplomate of the American Board of Medical Genetics in Clinical Cytogenetics. Her many professional memberships include serving as a founding fellow Ph.D. in the American College of Medical Genetics; a member of the American Society of Human Genetics; a member of the American Association for Cancer Research; a member of the American Society for Cell Biology; and an associate member of the American Head and Neck Society.

Dr. Gollin has published more than 75 peer-reviewed articles in various scientific journals, book chapters, and encyclopedia contributions, and serves as a referee for a number of scientific journals. She has been invited to present lectures about her innovative research on genetic changes in oral and head and neck cancer cells at Universities and conferences in the U.S., Europe, and Japan.