Joseph D. Deak, PhD

My research interests focus primarily on genetically-informed studies of substance use disorders (SUDs), psychiatric conditions, and other behavioral and lifestyle characteristics that impact human health using large-scale datasets and biobanks including the Million Veteran Program (MVP), the SUD working group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC-SUD), All of Us, Yale-Penn, UK Biobank, and 23andMe among others. These interests align closely with my clinical interests of providing evidence-based care for treating SUDs and other psychiatric disorders to promote patient well-being. My work is centered at the intersection of my research and clinical interests conducting large-scale genome-wide analyses of substance use and related health outcomes in collaboration with colleagues within the MVP and the PGC-SUD working group with a developing emphasis on examining drug toxicology outcomes (K01 DA058807). It is the hope that this work will aid in bridging basic and clinical sciences for investigating the etiology of SUDs, and will contribute to the field’s progress in leveraging state-of-the-art molecular genetic approaches to better understand long-term SUD related health outcomes and translating molecular genetic findings toward the discovery and development of treatment and prevention approaches.