Dr. Shi received his MD degree from West China University of Medical Sciences, Chengdu, China, in 1957. The early years of his career were spent as an ENT doctor at the same university in China. Because of his research project in nasopharyngeal carcinoma, he was sent to the Department of Pathology of the same university to have extensive pathology training for one year. This experience provided the solid foundation for his future study in pathology.

In early 1980, he passed a national examination and obtained a scholarship provided by Chinese government to study abroad. He was sent to Massachusetts General Hospital as a Visiting Scholar from 1982 to 1984. It was during this time that he started his life-long interest in the application and development of immunohistochemistry（IHC）.

He returned to China in 1985 and published his first book entitled "Techniques of IHC" which was also the first IHC book in China. In early 1990s, he successfully developed the antigen retrieval（AR）technique which expands the application of IHC from largely frozen tissue only to formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded（FFPE）tissue. AR has been recognized as a milestone in IHC and a revolutionary breakthrough in pathology.

Dr. Shi worked as a faculty member at Department of Pathology, University of Southern California since 1992 and retired in 2012. He published more than 70 articles and three books in AR. Because of his contribution and endeavor in the development of AR technique and IHC, he received the George Gomori Award on March 31, 2011 at the 62nd Annual Meeting of The Histochemical Society（HCS）. Dr. Shi served as an Associate Editor of Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry（JHC）（2003-2012）, Editorial Board members of JHC, Applied Immunohistochemistry and Molecular Morphology, and Chinese Journal of Pathology. He was a Councilor of HCS from 2006 to 2010.

His major research interest is focusing on AR techniques as well as extending application of this AR technique in extraction of proteins and nucleic acids from FFPE tissue sections, and tissue proteomics.