Dr. Shi earned his M.D. from Wannan Medical College, China in 1984. He was trained as a post-graduate in gastrointestinal physiology at Lanzhou Medical College, and later served there as a lecturer in medical physiology. The main focus of his research at that time was gastrointestinal motility. After winning the only fellowship of the International Union of Physiological Sciences for 1992, Dr. Shi moved to the Department of Physiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin and studied molecular biology for two years before returning to the research on gut smooth muscle in 1994. He earned his MS degree in Physiology from Medical College of Wisconsin in 1996 with his work on inflammatory modulation of muscarinic receptor activation in gut smooth muscle cells.

For the last several years, Dr. Shi has been working on the molecular mechanisms of gastrointestinal motility changes in diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome. These studies are clinically significant as the motility changes are responsible for symptoms such as diarrhea, abdominal pain, and constipation. One of the most striking findings of Dr. Shi's research is that gut smooth muscle is not just a "passive" contractile tissue, it also "actively" participates in the process of inflammation by secreting several cytokines, chemokines, and adhesion molecules. Accordingly, his current research focuses on the molecular regulation of gut smooth muscle contractile and cytokine-secreting functions.

Dr. Shi joined the Division as an Assistant Professor in January, 2002.

Shi, XZ, and SK Sarna. G protein-mediated dysfunction of excitation-contraction coupling in ileal inflammation. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol. 2004 Jun;286(6):G899-905.

Pazdrak, K, XZ Shi, and SK Sarna. SP1 and NF-?B Regulated Expression of ICAM-1 in Response to TNF-? Suppresses Human Colonic Smooth Muscle Contractility. Gastroenterology (in Press), 2004

Shi, XZ, PF Lindholm, SK Sarna: Oxidative Stress and Inflammation -Induced Activation of NF-B in Canine Colonic Circular Smooth Muscle Cells. Gastroenterology 124 (5): 1369-1380, 2003

Shi, XZ and SK Sarna. Impairment of Ca2+ mobilization in circular muscle cells of the inflamed colon. Am. J. Physiol. (Gastrointest. Liver Physiol 41): G234-G242, 2000.

Shi, XZ and SK Sarna. Differential inflammatory modulation of canine ileal longitudinal and circular muscle cells. Am. J. Physiol. (Gastrointest. Liver Physiol. 40): G341-G350, 1999.

Shi, XZ, and SK Sarna: Inflammatory Modulation of Muscarinic Receptor Activation in Canine Ileal Circular Muscle Cells. Gastroenterology 112:864-874, 1997.

Address:	301 University Blvd., Galveston, Tx. 77555-0764
Email:	xushi@utmb.edu
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