Yan Xu

Yan Xu

MD, FRCPC, MSc

Associate Scientist, Inflammation and Chronic Disease

Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

Hematologist, Department of Medicine

The Ottawa Hospital

Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine

University of Ottawa

Bio

Dr. Yan Xu is a clinician-scientist and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Thrombosis at the University of Ottawa and the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. His expertise spans venous thromboembolism (VTE), anticoagulation, bleeding risk prediction, and health equity in thrombosis care. He leads an interdisciplinary research program focused on improving diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes of VTE, particularly among racialized and linguistically diverse populations who experience systemic barriers to high-quality care.

Dr. Xu has a track record of impactful scholarship, with first- or senior-author publications in leading journals including JAMA, BMJ, Chest, Blood Advances, and Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis. He has secured over $600,000 in competitive funding as Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator, including support from CIHR, Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and international societies. His program integrates epidemiology, administrative databases, systematic reviews, and patient-partnered methods to inform precision risk prediction and equitable care delivery.

A committed mentor, Dr. Xu supervises trainees across graduate, medical, and undergraduate levels, many of whom have achieved awards and national presentations. He also contributes to national and international leadership roles, including serving on the CHEST VTE Prevention Guideline Panel.

Research Goals and Interests

Anticoagulant safety; Venous thromboembolism; Health disparities; Thrombotic conditions in racialized populations.

Dr. Xu's research program seeks to optimize the risks and benefits of anticoagulants in the prevention and treatment of arterial and venous thromboembolism among racialized populations, with aims to characterize, understand, and address systemic inequities across the spectrum of thrombosis research and clinical care. His active areas of inquiry include: 

1. Anticoagulant-associated bleeding in racialized populations

2. Racial equity in pregnancy-associated venous thromboembolism

3. Perspectives on thrombosis diagnosis, management and research participation among underrepresented ethnoracial communities

 


News


Publications

Cardiac thrombus despite anticoagulation in a 76-year-old man

2025-11-17 Go to publication

Racial Disparities in the Incidence and Risk Factors for Major Bleeding during Extended Anticoagulant Therapy for Venous Thromboembolism.

2025-08-04 Go to publication

Factors associated with COVID-19 vaccine confidence among Arab, Asian, Black, Indigenous, and White individuals in Canada: Latent profile analyses

2025-08-01 Go to publication

Racial disparities related to the perception of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness among parents of children aged 0-12 years old in Canada.

2025-07-23 Go to publication

Impact of clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential on arterial atherothrombosis and venous thromboembolism: Protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

2025-07-16 Go to publication

Principal Investigator / Co-Principal Investigator (Total: $634,602)

Advancing Precision in Prediction of Anticoagulant-Associated Bleeding Risks in Racialized Minority Populations

  • Investigator: Yan Xu, Joseph Shaw
  • Amount: $96,400 (2024 – 2026)

Competition: The Ottawa Hospital Academic Medical Organization – Innovation Fund

Population-based Racial Equity in Pregnancy-associated Venous Thromboembolism (PREPARE VTE): Impacts of Neighborhood, Language, and Immigration Status

  • Investigators: Yan Xu, Jerome Federspiel, Marc Carrier
  • Amount: $15,000 USD over 1 year (2025-2026)
  • Competition: Foundation for Women & Girls with Blood Disorders Research Awards Program

Canada Research Chair in Thrombosis (Tier 2) – Start-Up Operating Funds

  • Investigator: Yan Xu
  • Amount: $100,000 (2025 – 2030)
  • Competition: Canada Research Chair Program

Thrombin Generation Assay to Improve Risk Prediction of Reperfusion Outcomes in Acute Ischemic Stroke

  • Investigator: Vignan Yogendrakumar, Yan Xu
  • Amount: $49,133 (2025 – 2027)
  • Competition: Ottawa Hospital Research Institute – ELEVATE New Collaborations Fund

Use of appropriate population descriptors in thrombosis: Race, ethnicity, something else?

  • Investigators: Yan Xu, Marc Carrier, Leslie Skeith, Roy Khalifé
  • Amount: $43,000 over 3 years (2024-2027)
  • Competition: Royal College Foundation, Canadian Aid and Action Fund (CAAF) program

COMPACT Stroke: Consent Modernization for Platform Adaptive Clinical Trials in Stroke

  • Investigator: Michel Shamy, Yan Xu
  • Amount: $100,000 (2025 – 2027)
  • Competition: Brain Heart Interconnectome - Ignition/Exploration

Ethnic and Racial Quality and Access in Thrombosis Studies (EQUALS): Examining diversity and enhancing equity

  • Investigator: Yan Xu
  • Amount: $220,000 (2024 – 2026)
  • Competition: Canada Foundation for Innovation – John R. Evans Leaders Fund and Ontario Research Fund

Inflammation, clonal hematopoiesis, and venous thromboembolism among ethnic and racially underrepresented older adults

  • Investigators: Yan Xu, Marc Carrier, Jude Mary Cénat, Amy Teh-Mei Hsu, Guillaume Lettre, Rebecca Auer, Idrissa Beogo, Natasha Kekre, Roy Khalife, Gregoire Le Gal, Jerry Maniate, David Moher, Manish Sood
  • Amount: $19,728 over 1 year (2024-2025)
  • Competition: CIHR Team Grant: Embracing Diversity to Achieve Precision & Health Equity, Aging Pool – Letter of Intent Engagement Funding

Optimizing the Prevention of Symptomatic Venous Thromboembolism among Medical Inpatients

  • Investigators: Yan Xu, Gregoire Le Gal
  • Amount: $30,000 (Jul 2024 – Jun 2026)
  • Competition: Health Data Research Network Canada - Pragmatic Trials Training Program (Trial Leaders Stream)

Anti-Xa Guided Dosing of Low Molecular Weight Heparin for Prevention of Venous Thromboembolism Following Traumatic Injury: A Pilot Randomized Trial

  • Investigators: Yan Xu, Alexandre Tran
  • Amount: $30,156 over 2 years (2024-2026)
  • Competition: University of Ottawa Department of Medicine Pilot Research Grant

Racial Disparities in the Diagnostic Management and Outcomes of Pregnancy-associated Venous Thromboembolism: A Population-based Observational Study

  • Investigators: Yan Xu, Leslie Skeith, Kinga Malinowski, Isabelle Malhamé, Camille Simard, Jerome Federspiel, Marc Carrier, Mwali Muray, Tzu-Fei Wang, Manish Sood, Peter Tanuseputro
  • Amount: $15,000 USD over 1 year (2023-2024)
  • Competition: International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis Scientific and Standardization Committee Grant Program

Performance of risk assessment models for cancer-associated thrombosis in racialized minority populations: A systematic review.

  • Investigators: Yan Xu
  • Amount: $4,000 over 1 year (2023-2024)
  • Competition: Ottawa Blood Disease Centre Internal Research Competition

Barriers and facilitators to venous thromboembolism research participation in underrepresented ethnoracial groups

  • Investigators: Yan Xu, Grégoire Le Gal, Sonia Anand, Marc Carrier, Rufaro Chitsike, Deborah Siegal, Lisa Duffett, Agnes Lee, Carol West
  • Amount: $14,685 over 1 year (2022-2023)
  • Competition: CIHR Planning and Dissemination Grant – Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health

Patient preferences for oral anticoagulants in venous thromboembolism among underrepresented ethno-racial groups: a qualitative interview study

  • Investigators: Yan Xu, Marc Carrier, Lisa Duffett, Deborah Siegal, Carol West
  • Amount: $2,500 over 1 year (2022-2023)
  • Competition: University of Ottawa TOGETHER Social Accountability Grant

Effectiveness of idarucizumab in dabigatran-associated intracranial hemorrhage: an interrupted time series evaluation.

  • Investigators: Yan Xu, Kednapa Thavorn, Ranjeeta Mallick, Marc Carrier
  • Amount: $5,000 over 1 year (2021-2022)
  • Competition: CANSSI Ontario Data Access Grant

 

Co-Investigator (Total: $2,399,689)

Multinational Assessment of Risk factors and Vascular disease in Elders with dementias using Longitudinal cohort studies: The MARVEL Project

  • Investigators: NPI: Amy Hsu; Co-PIs: Frank AR, Lau W, Luo H, Vetrano D, Julien A-M; Co-investigators: Bezzina K, Boczar K, Chan T, Crawshaw J, Edwards J, Fisher S, Hensel A, Hunter L, Knoefel F, Magalhaes S, Manuel D, Parry M, Thavorn K, Xu Y.
  • Amount: $1,000,000 over 4 years (2024-2029)
  • Competition: CIHR Team Grant: Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA) Phase III – $1,000,000

The Impact of language on care and outcomes in patients with prostate or breast cancer

  • Investigators: Tzu-Fei Wang, Arif Awan, Chantal Backman, Ricardo Batista, Dominick Bosse, Marc Carrier, Angela Cheung, Katherine Cole, Stacey Fisher, Eric Forgues, Sharon Johnston, Krystal Kehoe MacLeod, Wenshan Li, Aliza Moledina, Daniel Myran, Michael Ong, Kruti Patel, Michael Reaume, Colleen Webber, Yan Xu
  • Amount: $100,000 over 1 year (2024-2025)
  • Competition: CIHR Project Grant – Priority Announcement: Health and Official Languages in Minority Communities

Impact of COVID-19 on Francophones and other minority language groups living in long-term care or receiving home care

  • Investigators: Peter Tanuseputro, Ricardo Batista, Lise Bjerre, Marc Carrier, Marie-Helene Chomienne, Stephanie Collin, Shannon Fernando, Adrienne Gaudreault, Alain Gauthier, Amy Hsu, Sharon Johnston, Sathya Karunananthan, Krystal Kehoe MacLeod, Claire Kendall, Josette Landry, Wenshan Li, Mwali Muray, Denis Prud'homme, Michael Reaume, Annie Robitaille, Manish Sood, Patrick Tang, Rachelle Vessey, Colleen Webber, Yan Xu, Antoine Desilets.
  • Amount: $725,000 over 4 years (2023-2027)
  • Competition: CIHR Project Grant

Reducing Gastrointestinal Bleeding with Proton Pump Inhibitor Therapy in Acute Venous Thromboembolism (RADIANT) Pilot Randomized Trial

  • Investigators: Deborah Siegal, Aurélien Delluc, Jameel Abdulrehman, Alan Barkun, Marc Carrier, Lana Castellucci, Nauzer Forbes, Peter Gross, Tim Ramsay, Marc Rodger, Leslie Skeith, Tzu-Fei Wang, Yan Xu.
  • Amount: $236,667 over 3 years (2023-2026)
  • Competition: CIHR Project Grant

From questions to answers: Creation of meaningful, patient-orientated research to address the top unanswered research questions in Venous Thromboembolism- the Clot Top 10 priorities

  • Investigators: Carol West, Lisa Duffett, Kerstin de Wit, Suzanne Dubois, Margaret Ostrowski, Danielle Morneault, Jessica Zambito, Dennis Christopher, Amy Pareja, Aurelien Delluc, Rick Ikesaka, Lori Linkins, Yan Xu, Lindsay Cowley
  • Amount: $25,000 over 1 year (2023-2024)
  • Competition: Ontario SPOR Support Unit – EMPOWER Award

Evaluation of Blood Product Utilization, Healthcare Resource Consumption and Patient Outcomes in New Oral Anticoagulant-Related Hemorrhage

  • Investigators: Ana Johnson, Sam Schulman, Dar Dowlatshahi, Anne Holbrook, Christopher Simpson, Philip Wells, Antonio Giulivi, Nancy Heddle, Yan Xu.
  • Amount: $304,406 over 3 years (2013-2016)
  • Competition: CIHR Operating Grant - Priority Announcement: Prospective Active Surveillance (grant # PAS 126297)

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