Department of Pathology

School of Medicine, Southeast University

Founded in 1935, the Department of Pathology at the School of Medicine, Southeast University traces its origins to the Medical School of National Central University and has evolved through the Medical School of Nanjing University, the Fifth Military Medical University, and Nanjing Railway Medical College. For more than eight decades, the Department has carried forward a distinguished academic tradition in pathology, shaped by generations of eminent scholars and dedicated educators. Established by Professor Kang Xirong, a renowned pathologist in China, the discipline was subsequently led by distinguished faculty members including Professors Wu Zaidong, Yu Jiacheng, Chen Wenluo, and Jia Yun, who helped build a culture of academic rigor, scientific integrity, and commitment to medical education.

The Department has a strong disciplinary foundation and a comprehensive academic platform. It was among the first institutions in China authorized by the State Council to confer master's degrees and now supports full-cycle graduate education through first-level doctoral programs in Basic Medicine and Clinical Medicine. It is also the home of the Jiangsu Provincial Key Clinical Specialty of Clinical Pathology and serves as a core unit of the Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Biomaterials and High Technology Research. The Department hosts two research platforms--the Institute of Molecular Pathology and the Institute of Biomaterials and Biocompatibility--and has developed an integrated framework that connects basic research, clinical diagnosis, and translational medicine.

Faculty and Academic Team

The Department has built a well-structured and dynamic faculty team. It currently has one professor/research professor, five associate professors/associate research professors, one lecturer, and one technical specialist, including two doctoral supervisors and four master's supervisors. All full-time faculty members hold doctoral degrees, and most have experience in advanced study, research, or academic exchange at leading institutions abroad. Faculty members serve on the editorial boards or as invited editorial board members of more than ten major medical journals, including the Chinese Journal of Pathology and the Chinese Journal of Hepatology. The Department has also cultivated two Outstanding Young Scientists of the former Ministry of Railways, two recipients of the Jiangsu Qinglan Project and the Jiangsu 333 Project.

Education and Smart Teaching

Committed to fostering virtue through education and training future medical professionals, the Department has developed a multi-level, AI-enabled teaching system. It provides teaching for doctoral, master's, “5+3+X,” integrated “5+3,” five-year undergraduate programs (including international students), and other forms of medical education. The Department offers in-person courses such as Pathology, Morphological Experimental Sciences, and Molecular Pathology, delivering more than 3,000 teaching hours annually. It also offers online courses including Pathology and Health, Morphological Experimental Sciences, Molecular Pathology, General Pathology, and Systemic Pathology, forming a comprehensive curriculum for undergraduate, graduate, and international education.

The Department has undertaken 30 educational reform projects at various levels and received 25 teaching awards. These include one National Quality Shared Online Course, one National Quality Online Open Course, three National First-Class Undergraduate Courses, one National Demonstration Online Course for Professional Degree Graduate Education in Medicine, four Jiangsu Provincial Excellent or First-Class Courses, one Jiangsu Provincial High-Quality Graduate Course, and one Baosteel Outstanding Teacher Award.

In recent years, the Department has continued to advance digital and intelligent teaching resources. It has developed online open courses covering theoretical teaching, laboratory teaching, and bilingual Chinese-English instruction, as well as AI-enabled smart pathology courses. It has also established multidimensional teaching repositories, including an electronic pathology library, image database, case database, digital pathology slide database, and 3D specimen database. By integrating artificial intelligence with digital pathology, the Department has pioneered a triadic collaborative teaching model involving teachers, students, and intelligent systems. This model has been presented and promoted at multiple universities and academic conferences across China.

Research

The Department has established four stable and distinctive research directions: molecular pathology and prevention of tumors; molecular pathology of organ fibrosis; molecular mechanisms and targeted therapy for kidney injury and repair; and cell-free nucleic acid-based non-invasive prenatal diagnosis and non-invasive preimplantation embryo screening.

Over the past decade, the Department has undertaken more than 50 research projects, with total funding exceeding RMB 40 million, including more than RMB 20 million directly administered by the Department. Faculty members have led more than 20 projects supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and participated in more than 10 others. They have also led two projects under the National High-Tech Research and Development Program of China (863 Program), participated in two additional 863 Program projects, and led 30 provincial and ministerial research projects. The Department has published nearly 500 academic papers, including more than 200 indexed by SCI, EI, or ISTP; published 20 textbooks and monographs; received eight provincial or ministerial science and technology awards; obtained more than ten authorized national patents; and filed more than twenty patent applications.

Graduate Education and Alumni

Since admitting its first master's students in 1979, the Department has enrolled 185 master's students, more than 170 of whom have obtained master's degrees or advanced directly to doctoral study. It has also enrolled 75 doctoral students, with more than 70 earning doctoral degrees. The quality of graduate training has been widely recognized: two master's theses have received the Jiangsu Provincial Excellent Master's Thesis Award, and one doctoral dissertation has received the Jiangsu Provincial Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award.

Over the past eight decades, graduates of the Department have made important contributions to medical universities, tertiary Grade A hospitals, research institutions, and clinical pathology services in China and abroad. Many have become leading figures in pathology diagnosis and biomedical research, including Professor Fan Qinhe, former Chair of the Jiangsu Society of Pathology; Professor Zhang Wandong of the National Research Council Canada; Professor Jiang Tang of Zhongshan Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University; and academic leaders such as Professors Zhang Dongsheng, Zheng Jie, Huang Peilin, and Chen Pingsheng.

Looking ahead, the Department of Pathology will continue to uphold its academic heritage, strengthen basic pathology research, clinical service, and medical education, and contribute its expertise to safeguarding human health and advancing the high-quality development of pathology at Southeast University.