Helen Liapis, MD

Helen Liapis, MD, professor of pathology and immunology, is being recognized as an internationally eminent renal pathologist with an extraordinary dedication to teaching, clinical care and research.

Liapis, also a professor of medicine, is considered by many colleagues to be one of the top experts in her field worldwide, possessing an in-depth knowledge of the kidney from birth throughout the lifespan. She brings this knowledge to students and colleagues at Washington University Medical Center.

As a teacher, she is known as an outstanding mentor who plays an active role in teaching medical students, residents and fellows. She is also a highly valued research collaborator; Liapis has published more than 90 peer-reviewed manuscripts, contributing to the understanding of developmental kidney diseases, obstructive nephropathy, mechanisms of diabetic nephropathy and transplant rejection, among others. She is the editor of several major texts, serves as a reviewer for many of her field’s most prestigious journals, and is an active member of the Renal Pathology Society.

Liapis holds many leadership roles within Washington University Medical Center, including director of electron microscopy in the Division of Anatomic and Molecular Pathology, section head of renal pathology, and co-director of the Washington University Kidney Translational Research Core, O’Brien Kidney Center.Liapis’s contributions to the field have been recognized with the Hellenic Spirit Foundation’s Distinguished Scientist Award and the Renal Pathology Society’s Jacob Churg Award.Liapis received her medical degree from the University of Athens in Athens, Greece, in 1974. She continued her training with residencies in anatomic pathology, surgery and clinical pathology at hospitals in Greece. After a summer as a visiting physician at University College in London, she came to Saint Louis University for further residency and fellowship training and joined the faculty of Washington University in 1991.