Li Yu

Prof. Yu Li is the Deputy Director (acting head) of the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Shanghai Tongji Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine. She is Chief Physician, Professor, and Doctoral Supervisor with 30 years of clinical experience in respiratory medicine.

Specialization & Clinical Expertise

Prof. Yu specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic airway diseases, with particular expertise in chronic cough, bronchial asthma, and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Her clinical practice covers:

- Chronic cough — etiological diagnosis and individualized precision treatment; she has conducted dedicated clinical research in this field for more than 10 years

- Bronchial asthma, including severe asthma — phenotype assessment and evaluation for biologic therapy

- COPD and long-term management of chronic airway inflammation

- Respiratory infectious diseases

- Lung cancer and diagnosis of respiratory malignancies

- Diagnosis and treatment of complicated, critical, and refractory respiratory conditions

Academic Leadership & Research

Prof. Yu leads basic and clinical research on chronic cough and asthma. She has served as principal investigator on more than 10 research projects, including grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the Shanghai Science and Technology Commission. She has published more than 60 SCI-indexed papers as first or corresponding author, in journals including Respirology and Lung, and participated in drafting national guidelines, including the Chinese national guideline on the diagnosis and treatment of cough, the primary-care guideline on cough management, and the expert consensus on refractory chronic cough.

Professional Roles

- Deputy Director (acting head), Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Shanghai Tongji Hospital

- Secretary, China Cough Alliance

- Member, Pulmonary Function Group, Chinese Society of Respiratory Diseases (Chinese Medical Association)

- Deputy Head, COPD Group, Shanghai Society of Respiratory Diseases

- Deputy Director, Cough Research Laboratory, Shanghai Institute of Respiratory Diseases

- Member, Respiratory Diseases Committee, Chinese Research Hospital Association

- Member, Respiratory Diseases Branch, Chinese Association of Geriatrics and Gerontology

- Reviewer, The Clinical Respiratory Journal

Education & Training

- Visiting Scholar, Johns Hopkins University, USA (2013–2014)

- M.D. (Doctor of Medicine), with doctoral supervision in Internal Medicine (Respiratory Medicine), Tongji University School of Medicine

Honors & Awards

- Outstanding Respiratory Physician of Shanghai

- Shanghai Medical Science and Technology Award, Third Prize (2015; third contributor) — for standardized diagnosis and treatment of chronic cough

- "Top Ten Physicians" of Shanghai Tongji Hospital (2026)

- Outstanding Young Respiratory Physician of Shanghai