In This Section

Message from the Chair

Yuri Persidsky, MD, PhD
Professor and Chair, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

I want to welcome you to our Pathology Department that plays a unique central role in the multidisciplinary value-based and patient-centric care in the era of precision and informatics dominated medicine. Our faculty with diverse expertise provides excellent clinical services in anatomic (AP) and clinical pathology (CP) in support of Temple University Health System’s renowned clinical programs (COPD, lung/heart transplants, cancer, cardiovascular among others). The Department is also a home of a four-year AP/CP residency program, and we are proud of our residents who have a one hundred percent passing rate on board exams, numerous presentations at national meetings and outstanding placements for fellowship training. Our Department has a rich history. Among prior distinguished faculty were Renato Baserga (a pioneer in studies of the cell cycle, and 1965-1991 Department chair), Si Chung Ming (co-author of Lauren and Ming’s classification for gastric carcinoma), Walter Clarke (proposed the prognostic classification for melanoma), Chik-Kwun Tang (described the morphologic basis for the Merkel cell carcinoma), and Irena Koprowska (the cytopathologist first to detect lung carcinoma cells in sputum samples). 

Our nationally recognized basic science programs (funded by NIH, NSF, and the state of Pennsylvania) are leaders in studies of blood brain barrier (BBB) injury in neuroinflammation, HIV infection, diabetes, traumatic brain injury, stroke, neuro-lupus, alcohol and drug abuse, novel BBB protective strategies, innate immune responses in HIV and other viral infections, neural and hematopoietic stem cell biology. Research core facilities include Histology, Imaging, Flow Cytometry, and a BSL2+ laboratory for infectious agents. The Department has a very active PhD/MD-PhD graduate program housed in seven extramurally funded laboratories.

There are several unique features of our Department: the Oral Pathology section is one of the busiest in the nation; and our faculty members are teaching in the Schools of Medicine, Dentistry and Podiatry. I encourage you to visit the pages of our individual clinical and research programs to see the depth and breadth of the talent and resources available for our patients, physicians and scientific collaborations.

With best regards,

Yuri Persidsky, MD, PhD
Professor and Chair