Children’s Hospital Foundation Chair for Pediatric Research
School of Medicine
Lu Cai, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pediatrics, radiation oncology, and pharmacology and toxicology and director of the Kosair Children’s Hospital Research Institute, joined the UofL as faculty in 2002. He received the Career Development Award from the American Diabetes Association in 2005 and the Outstanding Career Achievement Award from the International Dose-Response Society in 2008.
Dr. Cai earned his bachelor’s degree in medicine, master’s degree in radiation medicine, and doctoral degree in radiation biology and oncology from the Norman Bethune University of Medical Sciences, P.R. China. He then completed post-doctoral fellowships in pathology at the University of Western Ontario and pharmacology and toxicology McGill University.
Dr. Cai’s research focuses on the cardiovascular complications of diabetes and obesity, and the antioxidant metallothionein and its preventive effect on oxidative damage. His long-term goal is to develop new effective approaches to prevent and treat chronic cardiovascular diseases from a variety of etiologies, including diabetes and radiation. His projects have been continually supported by American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, National Health Institute and the Department of Defense.
He has successfully collaborated with other researchers and generated 153 peer-reviewed original publications, 30 peer-reviewed reviews, eight book chapters and two editorial commentaries. He is Associate editor-in-chief for the Journal of Geriatric Cardiology, The Open Hematology Journal, and Toxicological Sciences, and is senior editor of the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Pathology and the Journal of Diabetes Research and Clinical Metabolism. In addition, he is a member of 11 scientific editorial boards and serves as a reviewer for nearly 30 scientific journals. He has served as ad hoc and regular members for the grant reviewAmerican Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, National Health Institute and the Department of Veterans Affairs.