Joel Gelernter

Jan 7, 2025 | nature.com | Romain Icick |Oleksandr Frei |Hang Zhou |Howard J. Edenberg |Joel Gelernter |Olav B. Smeland

AbstractAlcohol use disorder (AUD) is highly heritable and burdensome worldwide. Genome-wide association studies can provide new evidence regarding the etiology of AUD. We report a multi-ancestry genome-wide association study focusing on a narrow AUD phenotype, using novel statistical tools in a total sample of 1,041,450 individuals (102,079 cases; European, 75,583; African, 20,689 (mostly African American); Hispanic American, 3,449; East Asian, 2,254; South Asian, 104; descent).

Aug 15, 2024 | jci.org | Hang Zhou |Joel Gelernter

AbstractAlcohol use disorder (AUD) is a prominent contributor to global morbidity and mortality. Its complex etiology involves genetics, epigenetics, and environmental factors. We review progress in understanding the genetics and epigenetics of AUD, summarizing the key findings. Advancements in technology over the decades have elevated research from early candidate gene studies to present-day genome-wide scans, unveiling numerous genetic and epigenetic risk factors for AUD.

Jul 22, 2024 | nature.com | Emily E. Hartwell |Joel Gelernter |Henry R Kranzler

AbstractCo-occurring psychiatric, medical, and substance use disorders (SUDs) are common, but the complex pathways leading to such comorbidities are poorly understood. A greater understanding of genetic influences on this phenomenon could inform precision medicine efforts. We used the Yale-Penn dataset, a cross-sectional sample enriched for individuals with SUDs, to examine pleiotropic effects of genetic liability for psychiatric and somatic traits.

Jul 16, 2024 | nature.com | Jinjie Duan |Daniel F Levey |G. Bragi Walters |Emma Johnson |Arpana Agrawal |Joel Gelernter | +2 more

AbstractCannabis use disorder (CUD) and cannabis use (CU) are prevalent conditions co-occurring with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Here we report results from a cross-disorder genome-wide association study of ADHD and CUD or CU. We identified 36 concordant genome-wide significant loci for ADHD–CUD and ten loci for ADHD–CU. DRD2 was identified as an ADHD–CUD risk gene.

May 7, 2024 | nature.com | Zeal Jinwala |Emily E. Hartwell |Mirko Pavicic |Kyle Sullivan |Ke Xu |Daniel Jacobson | +5 more

Correction to: Nature Medicine https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-02839-5, published online 1 March 2024In the version of the article initially published, the pipeline for the cross-ancestry meta-analysis did not accurately code some SNPs such that they were not combined despite being the same polymorphism. To fix this, we correctly annotated the rsIDs for the summary statistics from each ancestry and meta-analyzed them based on the unique rsID for each polymorphism.