Genetics of Substance Use

Michael M. Vanyukov

University of Pittsburgh

06353 Salk Hall

Pittsburgh, PA 15261

email: mmv@pitt.edu

Michael M. Vanyukov, Ph.D., is Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Psychiatry, and Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh. He was trained as a geneticist at the M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, USSR, and received his Ph.D. in genetics from the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences Institute of Medical Genetics. After his immigration in the USA, he was a postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, Pittsburgh, PA. He has contributed to the NIH-funded longitudinal study of addiction etiology, Center for Education and Drug Abuse Research (CEDAR), a NIDA Center of Excellence at the University of Pittsburgh, leading its research program as its scientific director and director of its neurogenetics research project for over 15 years. As investigator, mentor, and consultant,he has laid the groundwork for genetic research extensively examining major neurobiological systems, combining hypothesis-driven approach, a wide scope of genetic coverage, and biological and psychological mechanisms and mediators of addiction liability. Genotype-environment interaction in the development of liability phenotype is one of the aspects of this research. He has also pioneered phenotypic measurement methodology for complex psychological and psychiatric traits, maximizing its informativeness. This work has recently been focused on the reversal of the common biomedical research perspective, from disease risk to potentially more practicable resistance to disorder, its measurement, and search for resistance factors.