Dr.
Xian is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine,
Washington University School of Medicine and a Research Health
Science Specialist in the Veterans Administration Medical Center
– St. Louis. After obtaining a masters of science degree
in mathematics from Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois
in 1989, he matriculated in Washington University’s mathematics
program, receiving his doctoral degree in 1994. Between 1994 and
1996, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship and received training
in statistical genetics in Washington University’s Department
of Psychiatry.He joined the faculty in the Department of Internal
Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in 1997.
In 1999, Dr. Xian was awarded an American Cancer
Society Institutional Research Grant (IRG-58-010-43) titled “The
Impact of Nicotine Withdrawal and Dependence on Failed Smoking
Cessation: The Role of Genetic and Environmental Factors”.
This support permitted him to perform analyses of data obtained
from male twin members of the Vietnam Era Twin (VET) Registry.
Based on these analyses, he was funded by NIDA to study the issue
of failed smoking cessation (“Smoking Cessation: The Role
of Withdrawal and Dependence”; NIH/NIDA R03-DA13486). The
secondary analysis of VET Registry data seeks to increase our
understanding of the genetic and environmental contributions to
the complex issue of why so many smokers fail in their attempts
to stop smoking. His analyses have demonstrated the importance
of heritability in failed smoking cessation. Because the heritability
component is now more clearly defined, identifying environmental
influences on failed smoking cessation will be easier, and creating
more effecting smoking cessation programs may result.
Dr. Xian has been developing his accomplishments
in psychiatric genetic epidemiology. His research interests include
epidemiology for the studies of medical and psychiatric disorders,
genetic modeling and measurement of liability for medical and
psychiatric disorders, quantitative methodology in applied statistics,
and linkage and association methods in genetic dissection of etiologically
complex phenotypes.
Education
PhD - Washington University
MS - Western Illinois University in Macomb
Courses
