Director, Knight Diagnostic Laboratories (KDL), Knight Cancer Institute
Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine
Biographical Sketch
Education and training
M.D., 2004, Universidad del Valle
M.S., 2020, Stanford University (Biomedical Informatics)
Dr. Suarez is a board-certified pathologist specializing in anatomic pathology, clinical pathology, and molecular genetic pathology. He received his M.D. degree, graduating summa cum laude, from the University of the Valley (Universidad del Valle), Cali, Colombia. Following medical school, he worked as a research fellow at a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center investigating patterns of nosocomial antibiotic resistance. He later joined the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), as a postdoctoral research fellow in cancer and lung immunology. Dr. Suarez then returned to clinical practice, completing his residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at the University of Washington, Seattle, followed by a fellowship in Molecular Genetic Pathology (MGP) at Stanford University.
After his MGP fellowship, Dr. Suarez joined the Department Pathology at Stanford University, where he was a faculty member for 11 years. During this time, he assumed progressively senior leadership roles within the Stanford Molecular Genetic Pathology Laboratory, ultimately serving as its Director. In parallel, he helped establish and co-direct Stanford’s first Molecular Tumor Board and its first Genetic Testing Stewardship program. While serving in these roles, Dr. Suarez also earned a masters degree in biomedical informatics from Stanford University.
In 2026, Dr. Suarez joined Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and the Knight Cancer Institute as Director of the Knight Diagnostic Laboratories
Certifications
Anatomic and Clinical Pathology (American board of Pathology), 2013Molecular Genetic Pathology (American Board of Pathology and American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics) 2014Clinical Informatics (American Board of Pathology), 2022
Areas of interest
Molecular Pathology, with an emphasis on clinical molecular oncologyEvolution and ecology of cancer cellsEvolutionary medicine
CONTACT INFO
suarezca@ohsu.edu
Publications List in PubMed
OHSU Profile