Joseph Deak, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry, has been chosen to receive two awards from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), including a 5-year K01 career development award.
The title of Deak’s K01 award is, “Using novel data sources across genetic, biological, and social domains to refine genome-wide investigations of substance use disorders.” This grant aims to address challenges in genomic studies associated with modeling the co-use of multiple substance types and the co-occurrence of multiple substance use disorders. This research will be the first of its kind to also examine drug toxicology screening data across national health systems, including key questions related to health disparities in rates of drug toxicology test administration.
Joel Gelernter, MD, Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry and professor of genetics and of neuroscience, will serve as Deak’s primary mentor for the award. Additional co-mentors from Yale include Angela Haeny, PhD; John H. Krystal, MD; and Renato Polimanti, PhD, MSc.
Deak’s mentorship team also includes co-mentors Deborah Hasin of Columbia University, Henry Kranzler of University of Pennsylvania, and Kelly Harrington of Boston VA Healthcare System.
Deak also received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Loan Repayment Program (LRP) award through the NIDA Research in Emerging Areas Critical to Human Health (REACH) program to support him during these efforts.
The NIH LRP is a program designed to help recruit and retain highly qualified health professionals into biomedical or biobehavioral research careers by helping repay a researcher's qualified educational debt in return for a commitment to engage in NIH mission-relevant research.
Deak arrived at Yale in 2020 for his postdoctoral fellowship within the Translational Alcohol Research Program (TARP) funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Following his postdoctoral training he was promoted to associate research scientist in 2023 and, most recently, to tenure-track assistant professor of psychiatry in 2024.
Deak will be hiring research personnel at all levels to join his efforts. Those interested in joining his lab are encouraged to contact him via email.