Guoping Cai, MD

Guoping Cai, MD, was intrigued to learn, as a medical student, that pathologists could serve as a bridge between clinical care and basic research. “Pathology is unique in that we are studying the basis of disease,” Dr. Cai says, explaining that he enjoys the challenge of accurately diagnosing diseases from patient biopsies. At Yale Medicine, Dr. Cai specializes in cytopathology, as well as thoracic and genitourinary pathology. For Dr. Cai, medicine is a family affair. He met his wife—then his classmate—at medical school and now his daughter is training to become a physician. 

Much of Dr. Cai’s work focuses on examining genitourinary tract tissue samples and also biopsies of the lung and mediastinum to ensure that cancers and other diseases are accurately diagnosed. In cytopathology, in which a sample of a patient’s cells are examined for disease, he works with all organs, especially the lung, pancreas, and thyroid. 

As a professor of pathology at Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Cai investigates how imaging-guided, fine-needle aspiration biopsies can be improved with rapid onsite cytological evaluation and ancillary studies. He also works with collaborators on biomarkers of pancreatic, genitourinary, and lung cancers, which have diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic implications.