In 1993, Susan Forsburg left her postdoc at Oxford University, where she was part of Paul Nurse’s ICRF Cell Cycle Group, and joined the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla CA. The new Forsburg Lab was part of the Molecular Biology and Virology Laboratory (what Salk calls its departments) which was shortly renamed the Molecular and Cell Biology Lab. Thanks to a joint graduate program at UC-San Diego’s Dept (now Division) of Biology, Forsburg also had an adjunct appointment at UCSD which allowed her to recruit UCSD graduate students. She taught in both the graduate and undergraduate programs.
In 2004, as part of USC’s Senior Faculty Hiring Initiative, Forsburg was recruited to the Molecular and Computational Biology Program in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. The Forsburg Lab was the first lab in the department to move into the state-of-the-art Ray R Irani Hall, in 2005, where they now occupy over 2500 sq ft of lab space with their own imaging suite and Deltavision deconvolution microscope. The lab changed direction with the move, incorporating more advanced imaging methods.
Administratively, Forsburg served as head of the Molecular Biology graduate program for several years. She was a fellow of USC’s Center for Excellence in Research, and served on the Dornsife College Dean’s Research Advisory Board, and the College Tenure and Promotion Committee. She developed and now directs a progressive Masters Degree in Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, which is intended to give outstanding USC undergraduates an extra year of lab research experience after their BS.
The Forsburg Lab relies on graduate students for the bulk of our research. We have always included undergraduate students, who have gone on to graduate and medical studies at top universities. The students are complemented by talented postdocs and technical staff. If you are interested in our group, check out the research opportunities page.
For more pictures, check out the lab photos page, the lab offspring page, and the graduates page!
