Laboratory Medicine

The Department of Laboratory Medicine of Renji Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine is the hospital’s public service platform. It was established in 1946 by Deng Yulan, China’s first female pathologist, and has now developed into a modern discipline of laboratory medicine integrating medical care, education, and research, as well as a clinical in vitro diagnostics center comprising five major subspecialties: clinical biochemistry and mass spectrometry, clinical immunology, clinical microbiology, hematology, and molecular biology. The current department director is Li Min, Doctor of Medicine, researcher, doctoral supervisor, and Shanghai Leading Talent. The Department of Laboratory Medicine of Renji Hospital is a discipline supported by Shanghai’s Important Discipline Construction Project, one of the first batch of nationally approved pilot disciplines for the clinical application of NGS technology, and a member of the national and Shanghai bacterial and fungal antimicrobial resistance surveillance networks. In 2017, the Department of Laboratory Medicine of Renji Hospital completed the merger of the small clinical laboratories, forming a unified public testing platform for the entire hospital, thereby ensuring testing quality, guaranteeing biosafety, implementing unified training for laboratory personnel, effectively reducing consumption, and improving patient satisfaction and the hospital’s clinical diagnosis and treatment service capabilities. The laboratory medicine discipline has established clinical laboratories at the East, West, South, and North campuses. It possesses advanced instruments and equipment, more than 1000 clinical testing items, and highly qualified personnel in medical care, education, and research, fully leveraging the role of the clinical platform in supporting the discipline and meeting all clinical and research needs. The Department of Laboratory Medicine currently has 112 permanent employees; nearly 100% hold bachelor’s degrees or above, and nearly 50% hold master’s degrees or above. According to the different clinical characteristics of each branch, the laboratory departments of the various branches complement one another in their testing items, pursue differentiated development in their subspecialties, and operate under unified management. The department comprises the Emergency Testing Group, Cadre Healthcare Testing Group, Hematology Testing Group, Body Fluid Testing Group, Molecular Biology Testing Group, Biochemistry Testing Group, Immunology Testing Group, Clinical Microbiology Testing Group, NGS Group, Mass Spectrometry Group, Fever Testing Group, Specimen Collection and Processing Group, Blood Collection Center, and Waste Disposal Unit. The Department of Laboratory Medicine currently performs more than 1000 testing items and ensures the accuracy and reliability of testing results through multiple measures, including internal quality control, instrument calibration, test-item comparison, performance verification, report review, repeat testing, and training and assessment. Continuous improvement in testing quality is an enduring theme in the development of the laboratory medicine discipline. Over the years, the Department of Laboratory Medicine has participated in interlaboratory quality assessments for clinical testing programs organized by the Clinical Laboratory Center of the Ministry of Health, the Shanghai Clinical Laboratory Center, and other institutions, achieving excellent results in every case. It has also received honors including designation as a Reference Laboratory for Clinical Biochemistry by the Shanghai Clinical Laboratory Center. In 2014, the laboratory department of the East Campus successfully passed CNAS ISO 15189 accreditation. In 2016, the laboratory departments of the East and West campuses passed CNAS ISO 15189 reassessment and scope-expansion assessment, ensuring that the laboratory departments of the various branches provide homogenized services to the clinical departments while continuously improving testing quality management. The Department of Laboratory Medicine places great emphasis on continuously improving its teaching capabilities. It is responsible for the “Laboratory Diagnostics” course for the five-year English-language class of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, participates in teaching “Pathogenic Microbiology”, and participates in theoretical teaching and practical-training supervision for the Departments of Clinical Medicine, Preventive Medicine, and Laboratory Medicine in courses including “Experimental Diagnostics”, “Clinical Microbiology Testing”, and “Fundamentals of Clinical Laboratory Testing”. The Department of Laboratory Medicine is one of Shanghai’s first training bases for laboratory physicians and a standardized residency training base, providing clinical consultation and support concerning the clinical significance and selection of testing items related to experimental diagnostics. The department attaches importance to talent-pipeline development and has established a high-caliber team comprising personnel with doctoral or master’s degrees, senior laboratory technologists, and laboratory physicians. At the same time, the department has an innovative research team characterized by interdisciplinary integration and complementary strengths, and is a training site for master’s students, doctoral students, and postdoctoral fellows in clinical laboratory diagnostics. The team currently has 4 doctoral supervisors and 2 master’s supervisors and undertakes more than 60 projects, including key special projects of the Ministry of Science and Technology, National Natural Science Foundation projects, and provincial- and municipal-level projects. It has published more than 100 SCI papers, and multiple clinical basic and translational research achievements have been published in authoritative international SCI journals such as Nat Med, Nat Microbiol, and Cell Host Microbe. The team has received the Second Prize of the National Science and Technology Award (third contributor). More than 30 person-times among department employees have received or been selected for talent programs including National-Level High-Level Young Talent, Shanghai Leading Talent, Outstanding Academic Discipline Leader of the Shanghai Health System, Shanghai Young Top Talent, Top Talent of the Oriental Talent Program, Shanghai Municipal Education Commission Shuguang Scholar, Shanghai Young Science and Technology Qiming Star, Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission Pujiang Talent, the Shanghai Health System “Silver Snake Award,” the Shanghai Young Science and Technology Elite Yangfan Program, and Shanghai Outstanding Young Clinical Medical and Technical Talent. The Department of Laboratory Medicine has established friendly academic cooperation with the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the University of Tübingen in Germany, among others, and multiple graduate students have completed international training. With the continuous and stable development of the discipline in medical care, education, and research, its academic influence in the same field at home and abroad continues to grow.