On April 15, 2023, the 9th plenary meeting of Chinese Society of Psychiatry of Chinese Medical Association was held, and 69 members attended the plenary meeting. After individual election and member voting, the Standing Committee Member, Vice Chairman and Chairman-designate of the 9th Committee were elected. Ma Xiancang, Vice President of the First Affiliated Hospital (FAH) of Xi’an Jiaotong University (XJTU) was elected as Vice Chairman of Chinese Society of Psychiatry of Chinese Medical Association.
Ma Xiancang currently serves as Deputy Director of XJTU Health Science Center, Director of Department of Science, Technology and Discipline Construction (concurrent post), Vice President of Institute of Science and Technology (concurrent post), Vice President of the FAH of XJTU, Head of Psychiatry Innovation Team of Shaanxi Province, and Discipline Head of Department of Psychiatry of the hospital. He worked with colleagues from Department of Psychiatry to achieve rapid development. In 2020, Psychiatry Discipline of the hospital ranked 10th, for the first time, on China’s Hospital Specialty Reputation Ranking List released by Fudan University.
Professor Ma Xiancang led the research team to unravel the genetic mechanism of psychiatric disease and the mechanism of gut-brain axis, and created groundbreaking achievements. Multiple research results have been published in international prestigious journals. He was the first worldwide to perform metagenome-wide analysis in patients with medication-free schizophrenia, and a variety of bacterial species associated with schizophrenia were identified. Transplantation of a schizophrenia-enriched bacterium could induce deficits in social behaviors and alter neurotransmitter levels in peripheral tissues in the recipient mice.
At the end of 2022, "The Belt and Road Initiative" Joint Laboratory of Precision Medicine for Psychiatry" led by Professor Ma Xiancang was officially approved, becoming one of the first-batch "The Belt and Road Initiative" Joint Laboratories approved for construction in Shaanxi province. Moreover, it is also the only joint laboratory in the field of life medicine in Shaanxi province.
