Excitement Surrounds Arrival of Heart Disease/Cancer Expert

Faqian Li, M.D., Ph.D.

The Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine has successfully recruited Faqian Li, M.D., Ph.D., who joined the team this month as a diagnostic surgical pathologist specializing in pulmonary and cardiovascular disease and mediastinal pathology. He is expected to play key roles in the Cardiology and Cancer IDPs using his clinical and research skills.

Li comes to the Medical Center from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Medical Center, where he completed a fellowship in pulmonary and cardiac pathology. Before that Li did his residency training with the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of South Dakota, Sioux Falls. He earned his M.D. from Hubei Medical University in Wuhan, China, in 1983 and a Ph.D. in anatomy from the University of South Dakota Ph.D. in 1996. Click here to view his CV.

Clinical efforts in surgical pathology at the Medical Center are shifting from a generalist model to a specialist model, where faculty members focus on specific organ systems (e.g. Genitourinary, GI, GYN, and musculoskeletal pathology) to improve their diagnostic skills and work closely with specialist clinical units. Li joins a growing staff of pathologists specializing in the important areas of pulmonary, cardiovascular, mediastinal and pleural pathology, where the in-depth examination of tissue slides from biopsy and surgically excised specimens aides in the diagnosis of disease, especially with regard to malignant tumors.

Along with his clinical work, Li is an established basic science researcher with a keen interest in the function of heart muscle cells and in the function of the heart as a pump. He studies the mechanisms of heart failure, and the related problem of hypertrophy, where disease causes heart muscle cells to increase in size and ultimately fail to function effectively. His past studies suggest that the Wnt/beta catenin protein signaling pathway, which regulates multiple functions in many cell types, may be dysregulated in cardiac muscle cells in patients with heart failure and thus could be the target of future drug therapy.

“Dr. Li’s research interests in how heart muscle cells become dysfunctional in failing hearts fits directly into the strategic plan,” said Brendan Boyce, M.D., professor of Pathology and director of Anatomic Pathology at the Medical Center. “In addition, his expertise in pulmonary pathology and lung cancer has given him the skills to support the clinical, translational and research endeavors of our growing oncology focus.”