Our Team

Dr. Lei Cao, PhD

Dr. Cao graduated from Shandong University of Technology in China followed by a Masters from the University of Henri Poincaré in France where she studied Bio-processing, Agro-food, and Nutrition and Toxicology. She obtained her PhD in Psychobiology from the University of Trier in Germany and the Public Health Research Centre in Luxembourg where her research focused on the transcriptional control of human glucocorticoid receptor (GR), specifically, the identification and analysis of alternative promoter regions majoring in the gene variation and epigenetic effects on the human GR expression. Upon completion, Dr. Cao went on to work as a postdoctoral fellow at the Douglas Hospital Research Center where she studied prenatal maternal stress in the context of natural disasters, traumatic stress, (epi)genetics and child health outcomes. She is currently an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa in the  Interdisciplinary School of  Health Sciences where her research continues to focus on genetics and population health. She seeks to understand how the genome and the epigenome, as well as the interaction between genes and the environment, contribute to our health and wellness.