Siyan Cao, MD PhD – Principal Investigator
Dr. Siyan Cao “Stewart” is a physician scientist in gastroenterology. Siyan was born in Chengdu in Southwestern China. After college at Zhejiang University, he entered the PhD program in Biochemistry at University of Michigan. He then moved to New York where he obtained MD at Columbia University. Afterwards, he completed internal medicine residency at UCSF and gastroenterology fellowship at Washington University. Siyan’s research interests include mucosal immunity, multi-omics of complex human digestive diseases, and biomarker discovery in inflammatory bowel disease. His research is supported by the NIH, Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, American Gastroenterological Association, Doris Duke Foundation, etc. He serves on external committees including the National Scientific Advisory Committee of Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. Outside of work, Siyan enjoys outdoors including hiking and camping with family; he is an ultramarathon runner who loves mountains and trails.
https://gastro.wustl.edu/people/siyan-stewart-cao-md phd/
https://physicians.wustl.edu/people/siyan-cao-md-phd/
https://ultrarunning.com/calendar/runner/show?first_name=Siyan&last_name=Cao
Kaiming Ma – Research Assistant
Kaiming earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis. He joined the Cao Lab in 2023 as a founding member. He is interested in mucosal immunity related to inflammatory bowel disease, intestinal infection, and eosinophilic esophagitis. He is highly proficient in technical skills including isolation of mucosal immune cells, flow cytometry/FACS, DNA/RNA purification and PCR, processing of human blood cells and tissue samples, intestinal organoid culture, etc. In his spare time, he enjoys CrossFit.
Xin Yao, MD – Visiting Scholar
Xin was born and raised in Hunan, China. She earned her MD from Zhejiang University (ZJU), and completed her training in internal medicine and gastroenterology at the First Affiliated Hospital of ZJU. In 2024, she joined the Cao lab at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis as a Visiting Researcher. Her research focuses on understanding the role of ER stress in Crohn’s disease-related intestinal fibrosis, with a emphasis on the IRE1-XBP1 pathway. In her free time, she enjoys reading, traveling, and trying different local cuisines.