Peter B. Barr, PhD

Dr. Barr’s background is the social determinants of mental health. After completing his doctoral training in sociology, he went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship in psychiatric genetics at Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr Barr has advanced training in longitudinal analysis, statistical and psychiatric genetics, and the epidemiology of substance use disorders and comorbid problems. His work has explored a variety of topics including early life influences on trajectories of mental health problems, the role of social conditions in moderating genetic liability towards substance misuse, and harnessing comorbidity between psychiatric disorders to aid in genetic discovery. His recent work explores the use of social, clinical, and genetic data for clinical settings in order to identify those at extreme risk of developing various psychiatric problems. Dr Barr is part of the Externalizing Consortium and is a Co-I on an R01 from NIDA focused on using shared overlap between comorbid externalizing problems to aid in gene discovery for drug use disorders. Dr Barr is also a Co-I on the Finnish Twin Cohort (FinnTwin12) and is part of ongoing efforts to collect data from Finnish twins who are now in their early midlife.

Title: The Development of Alcohol Misuse and Related Problems from Adolescence to Early Midlife

Project Number: R01 AA015416

Name of PD/PI: Jessica Salvatore and Danielle Dick

Source of Support: National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism 

 

Title: Using the Genetic Architecture of Substance Use Disorders to Advance Gene Identification and Understanding of Pathways of Risk

Project Number: R01 DA050721

Name of PD/PI: Danielle Dick

Source of Support: National Institute of Drug Abuse