Gina Kolata is an award winning science and medicine reporter for the New York Times and has written over 1,000 articles for the paper. Her articles have appeared in almost every section of the paper, including the front page. Kolata is also the author of many books, including, "Clone: The Road to Dolly and the Path Ahead", "The Baby Doctors: Probing the Limits of Fetal Medicine", "Sex in America", and "Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It", which was a best-seller. She also has won numerous awards for her writing.

Kolata's career in journalism began when she joined Science magazine in 1971, where she selected reviewers for manuscripts. She eventually became a writer and then senior writer. She also wrote for a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including Science Magazine, Smithsonian, GQ and Ms. Magazine.

Kolata earned her bachelor's degree in microbiology and her master's degree in applied mathematics from the University of Maryland. She studied molecular biology at M.I.T. in a Ph.D. program.

NOTE: Bio is as it appeared in the Forum program from December 3, 2004.