EXPLORING GENETIC INFLUENCES ON ALCOHOL USE USING NOVEL STATISTICAL METHODS

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The training and research plans of this second revised K01 application will directly advance the candidate's long term career goal of developing an independent, transdisciplinary line of research that investigates subtypes of risk for alcohol-related problems and of alcohol use disorders based on phenotypic and genotypic information. Career development is sought in statistical genetics (related to hypothesis generation and testing), molecular genetics, and their integration with alcohol studies. These training objectives will be accomplished through coursework, workshops, seminars, and conferences; through extensive mentoring and consulting with senior investigators whose research is directly relevant to this application; and through development of collaborations. These activities will provide the foundation for the research plan, which combines nontraditional quantitative methods with an intermediate phenotype approach to generate conceptually- and empirically-based hypotheses about neurogenetic influences on physiological processes using highly informative yet small scale (N