Overview

As department chair, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.  I came to the department in September, 2016, following the very successful tenure of Dr. Fred Lucas as chair of the department.  Under Dr. Lucas' oversight, clinical pathology services were brought back in house at UC Medical Center, and the department grew significantly in size and stature. We anticipate continued growth in academic and clinical realms, in tandem with the expansion of our UC Health System. 

The Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Cincinnati includes accomplished physicians, research scientists, clinical laboratory scientists, and administrative, technical, and clerical staff who support our work.  Faculty have membership in three divisions: Anatomic Pathology, Clinical Pathology, and Experimental Pathology.  We host a thriving residency program and a graduate educational program in Pathobiology and Molecular Medicine, shared with the Department of Internal Medicine.  Our faculty also provide important support to medical student and graduate student teaching. 

Our clinical faculty include subspecialists trained in all major anatomic and clinical pathology disciplines.  Modern diagnostic tools and methods are utilized to support the high quality practice of pathology and laboratory medicine.  Members of the department direct a broad range of anatomic pathology and clinical laboratories at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center and West Chester Hospital, and a full range of laboratory services are provided to patients throughout our UC Health System.  We also direct the institution's biorepository, providing valuable samples for research throughout our system.

The Anatomic Pathology Division processes and diagnoses over 22,000 surgical specimens annually, to include not only routine surgical specimens but also eye pathology, bone marrow and renal biopsies, and complex tumor resections from highly active ENT, thoracic, and neurosurgical services.  The Histology Laboratory runs over 12,000 immunohistochemical stains a year from an extensive menu to meet the needs of our faculty.  Over 16,000 cytology specimens are reported annually.  The Clinical Pathology Division runs about 3 million billable tests a year, including specialized toxicology, chemistry, flow cytometry, and molecular microbiology and coagulopathy testing.  Our outreach programs generate very large volumes of case work, and satellite laboratories at West Chester Hospital, Drake Hospital, UCMC Emergency Department, the Barrett Center, and Varsity Village ensure rapid, high-quality patient results.

The Department has a very active basic research program including about 10 accomplished principal investigators, and the faculty has been awarded more than $6M in NIH funding annually over the last five years. Their research interests lie in two major areas. The Lipid Metabolism group studies a broad range of mechanisms related to lipoprotein biology, lipid absorption, vascular biology, fetal lipid metabolism, neural control of food intake, and inflammation. These investigators are active members of the Metabolic Diseases Research Center and use a spectrum of technologies from physical/structural biology, molecular biology, cell biology and animal physiology to target chronic metabolic disease states including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular and fatty liver diseases, chronic inflammation, and the interface between lipid metabolism and infectious disease. The group also houses a Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Center, a national resource for characterizing mouse models related to diabetes. These investigators are well-funded and internationally recognized for their work. The Regenerative Medicine group includes multi-disciplinary investigators specializing in cardiac regeneration and cell-based therapies for repairing the heart after myocardial infarction. They investigate progenitor/stem cell biology relevant to pluripotency, cell differentiation, proliferation, survival, gene therapy, tissue engineering, and explore the biological mechanisms involved in the process of reprogramming cells. We also have a strong presence in research focused upon the pathobiology of Aspergillus infection.

Our department is a community of academic caregivers, scientists, and educators dedicated to supporting the needs of those we serve in each of these roles. 

Thank you for visiting our website!

Dani S. Zander, MD
MacKenzie Professor and Chair, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of     Cincinnati College of Medicine
Chief of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, UC Health
Cincinnati, OH