Dr. Kelley Yan Receives CUAFA 2025 Young Investigator Award

At the 4th Annual CUAFA Gala Dinner held on March 1st, 2025, Dr. Kelley Yan was honored with the CUAFA Young Investigator Award. This award recognizes early-career faculty whose research shows exceptional promise and impact in their field. Dr. Yan, the Warner-Lambert Assistant Professor at Columbia University Medical Center, was celebrated for her groundbreaking work and inspiring leadership in the biomedical sciences. The award was presented by Professor Sankar Ghosh of the CUAFA Awards Committee, and Dr. Yan's heartfelt remarks resonated with all in attendance.

Dr. Yan receives her award from Dr. Ghosh.

Below are the remarks delivered by Professor Sankar Ghosh as he presented the Young Investigator Award to Dr. Kelley Yan.

Dr. Kelley Yan is an NIH-funded practicing clinical gastroenterologist and scientist who is internationally recognized for her innovative work in intestinal epithelial stem cell biology. She has made seminal discoveries about intestinal regeneration in both homeostasis and following injury.  Her work has uncovered the fundamental mechanisms underlying niche signaling to intestinal stem cells and how these signals may be exploited to manipulate the behavior of stem cells in self-renewal and cell fate decisions.

Kelley received her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College where she studied chemistry. She subsequently entered the MSTP at Mount Sinai Medical Center (NYC), where she received her MD as well as her PhD (Structural Biology) degrees, with her research focused on using NMR spectroscopy to understand the 3D structure-function relationships of proteins. Her graduate studies were highly productive and resulted in publications in Nature, Molecular Cell, Nature Structural Biology. She subsequently completed her Internal Medicine Residency and GI fellowship at Stanford University. At Stanford, she completed postdoctoral research training in the lab of the internationally renowned scientist, Dr. Calvin Kuo.

She came to Columbia University in 2016 as a member of the Division of Digestive Diseases , the Columbia Center for Human Development, the Department of Genetics and Development, as well as the Columbia Stem Cell Initiative. Since her arrival, she has had spectacular success with a series of high impact publications in Nature, Cell Stem Cell, PNAS and most recently a landmark study in Cell where she has redefined our concepts of intestinal stem cells.  Using a combination of single-cell RNA sequencing and genetic lineage tracing, her work uncovered unknown functions for the gene Fibroblast Growth Factor Binding Protein 1as a key gene essential for intestinal stem cells, and work underway will soon reveal even greater insights into the mechanisms involved.  Her standing as one of the leading young stem cell biologists was acknowledged by the Editors of Cell Stem Cell who featured her as a rising star junior faculty in 2019.  

She has received numerous awards and accolades, including the CIRM MD Scholars award, the Burroughs Welcome Fund Career Award, the Gerstner Merit Award, the ASCI Young Physician-Scientist Award, the Irma T. Hirschl Award, the Irving Scholar Award, the AGA Young Basic Investigator Award, the Harold & Golden Lamport Research Award, and the recent election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation this year (2025).   

CUAFA extends its deep appreciation to the Awards Committee for their thoughtful selection process and dedicated service: Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic (Chair), Cory Abate-Shen, Yiping W. Han, Sankar Ghosh, Gerard Karsenty, Anil K. Lalwani, Andy Marks, Mae Ngai, Liang Tong, Yuan Yang and Harris H. Wang.