# BLRD Research Career Scientist Award Application

> **NIH VA IK6** · DURHAM VA MEDICAL CENTER · 2024 · —

## Abstract

Dr. Kimbrel is an experienced VA investigator with expertise in psychiatric genetics, suicide risk prediction,
nonsuicidal self-injury, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance abuse. His program of research
utilizes a wide array of research methods (e.g., genetic epidemiology, machine learning, clinical observation,
ecological momentary assessment, clinical trials) to investigate the phenomenology of these conditions.
 Genetic Risk Factors for Suicide. Dr. Kimbrel has led many of the largest genetic studies of suicidal
thoughts and behaviors to date. His most recent study involved 633,778 Veteran participants and identified 16
novel genetic risk loci, including seven cross-ancestry risk loci. Nine additional ancestry-specific loci were also
identified. Dr. Kimbrel’s team also recently conducted the largest epigenome-wide association study of DNA
methylation in relation to suicide attempts to date. He is currently leading the largest genome-wide gene x
environment interaction study (GEWIS) of suicidal thoughts and behaviors to ever be attempted.
 Environmental Risk Factors for Suicide. Dr. Kimbrel is equally passionate about studying and identifying
environmental risk factors for suicidal thoughts and behaviors, having also led numerous studies aimed at
identifying how psychiatric complexity and different forms of traumatic stress (e.g., combat exposure, military
sexual trauma, childhood sexual trauma) contribute to risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors among
Veterans. More recently, his team has utilized sophisticated machine-learning approaches to study how
geospatial risk factors (e.g., altitude, rurality, social deprivation) contribute to suicide risk in Veterans.
 Improving Prediction of Acute Suicide Risk among Veterans. Dr. Kimbrel is presently MPI of four
federally-funded projects utilizing machine-learning techniques and/or novel data sources to improve prediction
of suicide risk among Veterans. To date, Dr. Kimbrel’s team has developed: (1) natural language processing
(NLP)-based approaches for extracting stressful life events and other suicide risk factors for Veterans from
healthcare notes; (2) NLP-based approaches for estimating prevalence of uncoded suicide attempts; (3)
continuous-time probabilistic models to handle longitudinal EHR data assessed inconsistently over time; and
(4) multiple AI-based models of risk for suicide attempts, suicide deaths, and all-cause mortality.
 Genetic and Environmental Contributions to PTSD and other Psychiatric Phenotypes. Dr. Kimbrel’s
research team has also studied the genetics of numerous other psychiatric phenotypes, including PTSD,
depression, substance use disorders, hippocampal subfield volume, and cortical surface area and thickness.
They are also actively involved in understanding how DNA methylation, gene expression, and various
measures of biological aging relate to psychiatric phenotypes. He has also led numerous investigations on
environmental contributions to PTSD and oth...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10924892
- **Project number:** 1IK6BX006523-01
- **Recipient organization:** DURHAM VA MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Nathan A. Kimbrel
- **Activity code:** IK6 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-04-01 → 2029-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10924892

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10924892, BLRD Research Career Scientist Award Application (1IK6BX006523-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10924892. Licensed CC0.

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