Yao Yikun, Ph.D., graduated from the Shanghai Institute of Life Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is currently a researcher and Ph.D. supervisor at the Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research primarily focuses on host immune defense mechanisms.

His major academic achievements include revealing and clarifying the critical role of sialylation in the glycosylation modification of proteins in the intestinal mucosal layer, which regulates the integrity of the intestinal mucosal barrier and maintains the host-gut microbiota homeostasis. He has identified and elucidated two pathogenic genes and their mechanisms responsible for pulmonary bacterial infections and oral fungal infections. Additionally, he has systematically uncovered new mechanisms by which multiple members of the NLR receptor family detect pathogens during antibacterial immune responses.

He has published multiple research papers in journals such as Cell, Nature Immunology, Cell Research, Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), Nature Communications, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (JACI), and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).