The article, “Genome-wide meta-analysis of problematic alcohol use in 435,563 individuals yields insights into biology and relationships with other traits,” has been accepted for publication in Nature Neuroscience. Drs. Abraham Palmer and Sandra Sanchez-Roige are co-authors, along with Hang Zhou, Julia Sealock, Toni Clarke, Daniel Levey, Cheng Zhongshan, Boyang Li, Renato Polimanti, Rachel Kember, Rachel Smith, Johan Thygesen, Marsha Morgan, Stephen Atkinson, Mark Thursz, Mette Nyegaard, Manuel Mattheisen, Anders Børglum, Emma Johnson, Amy Justice, Andrew McQuillin, Lea Davis, Howard Edenberg, Arpana Agrawal, Henry Kranzler, and Joel Gelernter.

The article, “Sex-Dependent Associations Between Addiction-Related Behaviors and the Microbiome in Outbred Rats,” has been accepted for publication in EBioMedicine. Drs. Abraham Palmer, Amelie Baud, and Oksana Polesskaya and Apurva Chitre are co-authors, along with John Cryan and Veronica Laine Peterson. Read the article here.

The article, “The Latent Genetic Structure of Impulsivity and its Relation to Internalizing Psychopathology,” has been accepted for publication in Psychological Science. Drs. Abraham Palmer and Sandra Sanchez-Roige are co-authors, along with Daniel Gustavson, Naomi Friedman, Pierre Fontanillas, and Sarah Elson.

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, and in keeping with the policies of both UCSD and the State of California, the Palmer Lab has ceased all but essential laboratory activities and have transitioned to remote work. These changes went into effect during the second week of March. Much of our work has continued, despite the disruption. We look forward to returning to normal operations once it is safe to do so.

Denghui Chen joined the Palmer Lab in March 2020 as a Research Data Analyst. He graduated from UC San Diego with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering. He is passionate about the applications of machine learning to biomedical analysis and wishes to pursue a career in academia in the bioinformatics field. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, cooking, wine tasting, painting and short walks at Black’s Beach for sunsets. Welcome, Denghui!

Daniel Munro joined the Palmer Lab as a Postdoc in March 2020. Dan received his PhD in Quantitative and Computational Biology from Princeton University where he studied cancer mutations, gene expression patterns, and protein variants. He is working on a joint project with Pejman Mohammadi at The Scripps Research Institute to study regulatory variation in rats. Dan also enjoys graphic design and web development. Welcome, Daniel!

Joel Leal joined the Palmer Lab in March 2020 as a Postdoctoral scholar. He graduated from the University of Florida with a PhD in Animal Sciences and a major in Genetics. He has performed high density association analysis, RNAseq studies, eQTL and sQTL mapping, and incorporated SEM analysis to QTL mapping for complex phenotypes. He aspires to continue performing research on animal genetics with a focus on uncovering the genetic architecture of complex phenotypes. In his free time, he enjoys watching movies, cycling and drawing. Welcome, Joel!

Dr. Abraham Palmer has been selected by the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society as the recipient of the 2020 IBANGS Distinguished Investigator Award. “The Distinguished Investigator Award honors a scientist who is 7 or more years post first faculty or faculty-equivalent appointment, and whose area of research is in behavioural and neural genetics.” Congratulations, Abe!

The article, “Emerging phenotyping strategies to advance our understanding of psychiatric genetics,” has been accepted for publication in Nature Neuroscience. Drs. Abraham Palmer and Sandra Sanchez-Roige are co-authors.

The book chapter, “Steep Discounting of Future Rewards as an Impulsivity Phenotype: A Concise Review,” has been accepted for publication. Drs. Abraham Palmer and Sandra Sanchez-Roige are co-authors along with Emily Levitt and James MacKillop.

The full citation is as follows:

Levitt:, E., Sanchez-Roige, S., Palmer, A., & MacKillop, J. (in press). Steep discounting of future rewards as an impulsivity phenotype: a concise review. In H. deWit & D. Jentsch (Eds.) Recent Advances in Research on Impulsivity and Impulsive Behaviors and Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences. Springer: New York.