# Project 4 - Human studies to identify genes and characterize risk pathways involved in alcohol related outcomes

> **NIH NIH P50** · VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $187,831

## Abstract

Project Summary – Project 4
Project 4 of the VCU Alcohol Research Center will utilize human data to accomplish two complementary goals:
(1) advancing discovery of genes involved in alcohol-related outcomes using new multivariate genomic
techniques, and (2) characterizing the risk associated with identified variants in diverse longitudinal samples, in
order to understand the spectrum of phenotypes associated with identified variants, across development, and
in conjunction with the environment. Each of these areas represent critical steps in using genetic data to
improve prevention, intervention, and treatment for alcohol use disorders (AUDs), and will lay the foundation as
we move into an era of personalized medicine. Human gene identification efforts for alcohol use disorders lag
behind other areas of psychiatry, in part due to constrained sample sizes of available AUD cases. However,
recent meta-analyses of consumption and AUD reveal significant genetic correlations with numerous other
psychiatric and behavioral traits, as well as social and demographic outcomes, and other biomedical
phenotypes. Project 4 will (Aim 1) apply new multivariate genetic methods to capitalize on genetic sharing
between alcohol use phenotypes and other psychiatric and behavioral traits in order to boost power to detect
common variants associated with alcohol use outcomes, and to characterize the latent pathways by which
genetic variants operate. Bioinformatic characterization of these identified genetic variant results through the
Bioinformatics and Analytics (BIA) core will help elucidate underlying biological risk pathways. We will then
apply results from these multivariate analyses to three complementary longitudinal datasets, consisting of both
population-based and high-risk samples, in order to (Aim 2a): map the behavioral phenotypes associated with
the genetic risk scores identified in Aim 1 across adolescence and emerging adulthood; (Aim 2b) test for
pathways of risk specific to sex and racial/ethnic background; and (Aim 2c) test for moderation of genetic risk
by key environmental factors. The project will interface with the other ARC components in multiple ways:
results from the gene discovery analyses (Aim 1) will be integrated with model organism results and
expression data (Projects 1-3) in the BAI Core to create refined polygenic risk scores for further study in Aim 2.
Project 5 will refine structural models using twin and epidemiological samples to further characterize the
multivariate nature of genetic influences on alcohol-related outcomes, to iteratively inform and extend the
multivariate analyses performed in Aim 1. Further, the genetic variants identified in Aim 1 can be advanced for
further study in animal models via the Rodent Behavior Core.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10429956
- **Project number:** 5P50AA022537-08
- **Recipient organization:** VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** DANIELLE M DICK
- **Activity code:** P50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $187,831
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2014-08-05 → 2025-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10429956

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10429956, Project 4 - Human studies to identify genes and characterize risk pathways involved in alcohol related outcomes (5P50AA022537-08). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10429956. Licensed CC0.

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