Medical Directors
Christopher Corless, MD, PhD
After undergraduate studies at the Univ. of California, Berkeley, Dr. Corless received his MD and PhD degrees from Washington University, St. Louis. He did his residency training in Anatomic Pathology at the Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston, where he also completed fellowship training in GI Pathology and GU Pathology. In 1994, he joined the faculty of Oregon Health & Science University as an Assistant Professor. He has served as the residency program director in Pathology and as medical director of surgical pathology for OHSU Hospital, and is now the Chief Medical Officer for the Knight Diagnostic Laboratories at OHSU. In addition to practicing surgical pathology, Dr. Corless has expertise in the application of molecular diagnostics to the classification and prognostication of solid tumors. He was promoted to Professor of Pathology in 2004 and is an author on over 200 publications.
Cary O. Harding, MD, FACGM
Cary O. Harding, MD, FACMG is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Molecular and Medical Genetics and Pediatrics at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and is the Medical Director of the Biochemical Genetics Lab in the Knight Diagnostic Laboratories. He received his medical degree from the University of Washington followed by pediatric and medical genetics training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is board certified in Pediatrics, Clinical Genetics, and Biochemical Genetics. Dr. Harding is a founding fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics. He is an attending physician on the OHSU clinical genetics service as well as in both the clinical genetics clinic and the metabolic clinic at Doernbecher Children's Hospital. He is also a clinical consultant to the Northwest Regional Newborn Screening Program and to the State of Idaho Genetics Program. Dr. Harding's basic and clinical research programs are focused upon the development of novel therapies, including gene and cell therapies, for inborn errors of metabolism.
SUSAN J. HAYFLICK, M.D.
Dr. Hayflick's special interests include clinical genetics and neurogenetic disorders. She completed medical school at The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in 1985 and did an internship and residency in pediatrics at the Maine Medical Center in Portland. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in medical genetics at the Center for Medical Genetics at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and joined Oregon Health & Science University in 1993. Dr. Hayflick is a professor of Molecular and Medical Genetics, Pediatrics, and Neurology at OHSU and is currently Chair of the Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics. In addition, Dr. Hayflick serves as the Director of the OHSU Human Genetics Initiative. She is ABMG-certified in clinical, biochemical and molecular genetics and is a founding fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics.
Stephen Robert Moore, PhD, FACMG
Dr. Moore is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, and is the Assistant Director of the Clinical Cytogenetics Laboratory and of the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory. He is ABMG board-certified in both Clinical Cytogenetics and Clinical Molecular Genetics. He earned a BSc from Washington State University, an MSc from California State University and a PhD in Environmental Toxicology from the University of California. He then did fellowships at the Medical Research Council Radiation and Genome Stability Unit in Oxford, City of Hope (Duarte, CA), Cedars-Sinai/UCLA, and OHSU. Presently, his laboratory interests encompass new test development, including chromosomal microarray analysis for congenital disorders, prenatal diagnostics and cancer, and the development of next generation sequencing panels and exon-specific copy number arrays for rare genetic disorders and cancer; the overall goal of these efforts being the development of genomic tools to guide personalized medicine.
ROBB E. MOSES, M.D.
Dr. Moses` special areas of interest include Fanconi anemia, DNA repair deficiencies and gene therapy. He currently heads the Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics. He received his medical degree in 1966 from Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore, which is also where he completed his residency in Internal Medicine. Dr. Moses completed his Biochemistry fellowship at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and his fellowship in Molecular Genetics at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD.
Susan Olson, Ph.D.
Dr. Olson earned her Ph.D. in medical genetics from OHSU and is certified by the American Board of Medical Genetics, with subspecialties in Clinical Cytogenetics. Dr. Olson was elected to the founding board of directors for the American Cytogenetics Conference and is a Founding Fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics. She joined the OHSU faculty in 1987 where she currently serves on the steering committee for the Program in Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, the School of Medicine Curriculum Committee, the Oregon Stem Cell Oversight Committee and the OHSU Collaborative Research Leadership Group.
Dr. Olson’s research interests include mechanisms of genomic instability and cancer. In particular, the cancer predisposing syndrome Fanconi anemia, which is a recessive disorder of DNA repair that has the classic finding of chromosome breakage. Dr. Olson is also Director of the OHSU Cytogenetics Research Service Laboratory which offers traditional and molecular cytogenetic analysis of human, mouse and other animals to investigators throughout the country.
RICHARD D. PRESS, M.D., PH.D.
Dr. Press is the director of Molecular Pathology and the Molecular Diagnostics Center at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, and program director for the Molecular Genetic Pathology Fellowship. His research interests include molecular diagnostic biomarkers in cancer & infectious diseases and prevalent genetic alterations in common diseases. Dr. Press received his MD & PhD in 1988 at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Sue Richards, Ph.D.
The focus of my clinical research laboratory is development of sequence-based testing for rare disorders, custom array analysis to address copy number variants, and multiple next generation sequencing (NGS) panels, as well as translation of these products into clinical practice.
I have a long-standing history of clinical translation of sequence-based tests for rare genetic disorders, including colorectal cancer and rare cancer disorders, such as Fanconi anemia, as well as neuromuscular disorders. In collaboration with Dr. Susan Hayflick at OHSU we developed clinical testing for pantothenate kinase-associated neuropathy and infantile neuroaxonal dystrophy as well as other genes associated with brain iron accumulation. While these clinical tests currently utilize Sanger technology, efforts are underway to develop NGS panels for Fanconi anemia genes, inherited cancer genes, and brain iron accumulation genes using Ion Torrent.
For rare disorders that require sequence analysis, additional technologies are required to assess copy number variants. We are developing custom microarray analysis to compliment our sequence analysis of rare disorders, syndromes associated with multiple genes, and inherited cancer genes.
Current research projects of my laboratory include development and assessment of pharmacogenetic testing. In particular, we are collaborating with Kaiser investigators on an NCI-funded project to assess efficacy of CYP2D6 genotyping breast cancer patients for predicting response to tamoxifen. In addition, we are piloting a project aimed at genotypingCYP2C19 stent recipients to assess efficacy of response to clopidogrel (plavix).
Nationally, I am actively engaged in contributing to quality assurance of genetic testing through development of standards and guidelinesas well as a methods-basedproficiency testing program for laboratories sequencing genes of rare disorders.
