Lina Ghaloul Gonzalez, MD

Lina Ghaloul Gonzalez, MD, is an assistant professor of pediatrics and a Mellon Scholar within the Division of Genetic and Genomic Medicine, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Human Genetics at the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. Ghaloul-Gonzalez, a native Syrian/Spanish, earned her medical degree from the University of Aleppo School of Medicine in Aleppo, Syria. Following this, she pursued further studies, obtaining a diploma in investigation after a two-year period in the doctoral program of Molecular Medicine at the School of Medicine, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain in 2002. She completed her Internal Medicine residency at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York in 2009 and her residency in Medical Genetics and fellowship in Medical Biochemical Genetics at Pitt/UPMC in 2013.

Ghaloul-Gonzalez then completed two years as a postdoctoral research associate before joining the faculty as a research assistant professor in 2015. She was promoted to Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in 2019 and to Assistant Professor in the tenure track in 2022. During her fellowship, Dr. Ghaloul-Gonzalez became interested in the translational aspect of research including implementation of next generation sequencing and bioinformatics analysis in the diagnosis of genetic disorders and the modern approach to medicine. This interest became later more focused on studying the genetic disorders in the Plain community (Amish and Mennonites) in Western PA, the least studied Plain community in the US. She co-founded the Plain people translational medicine program at UPMC with its outreach clinic in Hermitage, PA which provides clinical care and research opportunities to members from the Plain community.

Ghaloul-Gonzalez participated in several other translational research projects such as implementation of Next-gen sequencing in the NICU setting. Additionally, Dr. Ghaloul-Gonzalez has special interest in understanding the pathophysiology of TANGO2 related disorder, a disorder that is seen in the Plain and the general populatino. She has been awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH) K08 Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award under National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) in 2019 for her grant “Precision Genomic Medicine in The Plain Communities and its Impact on The Plain and General Population”. She also has been funded by the TANGO2 research foundation in 2020 and 2022 and was Co-PI or Co-I on several other grants.

Ghaloul-Gonzalez is board-certified in internal medicine, clinical genetics and medical biochemical genetics. She is a member of the society for pediatric research (SPR), Society for Inherited Metabolic Disorders (SIMD), American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMGG), and the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG).

Professional and Scientific Society Memberships

• Association for Glycogen Storage Disease, 2022, 2023
• Society for Pediatric Research, 2019-Present 
• American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, 2014-2015, Present
• Society for Inherited Metabolic Disorders, 2014-Present 
• American Society of Human Genetics, 2013-2019
• American College of Physicians, 2006-2009 
• American Medical Association, 2006-2009 
• Medical Association in Syria, 1994-2000