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Peter
P.
Zandi
,
PhD

Professor
Peter Zandi

Departmental Affiliations

School of Medicine
Primary
Joint
Division
Genetic Epidemiology

Contact Info

624 N. Broadway, Hampton House 857
Baltimore
Maryland
21205
US        
(410)955-9088

Research Interests

Genetic Epidemiology; Pharmacoepidemiology; Pharmacogenetics; Mood Disorders; Alzheimer's Disease; Learning Health Systems; Digital Mental Health
Experiences & Accomplishments
Education
PhD
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
2001
MHS
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
2000
MPH
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
1997
Overview
I am a psychiatric epidemiologist with expertise in genetic epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, pharmacogenetics, and mental health informatics. I am Vice-Chair of Research for the Department of Mental Health. I also co-direct research for the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders in the Department of Psychiatry, and I direct an NIMH supported Psychiatric Epidemiology Training (PET) Program to train the next generation of psychiatric epidemiologists in using “big data” to study mental illnesses. I am engaged in translational and mulit-disciplinary research to understand the causes of severe mental illnesses, particularly mood disorders including depression and bipolar disorder, and develop more effective strategies to reduce the burden of these illnesses in the population. In my genetic epidemiology work, I lead a “dry” laboratory that uses statistical genetics and bioinformatics tools to manage, analyze and interpret high-throughput genomic data from genome-wide association, expression, sequencing and epigenetic studies of complex psychiatric disorders. In my pharmacoepidemiology work, I investigate pharmacological strategies for the treatment and prevention of severe mental illnesses using both observational and randomized study designs. Bringing together my interests in genetic and pharmacoepidemiology, I study the pharmacogenetics of safety and efficacy responses to psychotropic medications with the goal of developing genomic predictors that can be used to personalize treatment and prevention strategies. Finally, I have been working to develop new approaches that leverage emerging health informatics technologies, such as electronic medical records and mobile technology, for carrying out the next generation of large scale psychiatric epidemiology research.
Honors & Awards
Delta Omega Society, Alpha Chapter (2002)
The Morton Kramer Award for the Application of Biostatistics and Epidemiology in Research on the Prevention and Control of Mental Disorders, Department of Mental Hygiene (2000)
Distinguished Guest Student, The Lasker Award Ceremony (2000)
The Harold and Sylvia Halpert Award, Department of Mental Hygiene (1999)
NIMH pre-doctoral fellowship in psychiatric epidemiology (1998)
Select Publications
  • Chuang YF, Hayden KM, Norton MC, Tschanz J, Breitner JC, Welsh-Bohmer KA, Zandi PP, for the Cache County Investigators. The Association between APOE and vascular dementia: The Cache County Study. Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders. 2010;29(3):248-53.

  • Zandi PP, Judy JT. The promise and reality of pharmacogenetics in psychiatry. Psychiatric Clinics of North America. 2010;33(1):181-224.

  • Szekely CA, Green RC, Breitner JC, Østbye T, Beiser AS, Corrada MM, Dodge HH, Ganguli M, Kawas CH, Kuller LH, Psaty BM, Resnick SM, Wolf PA, Zonderman AB, Welsh-Bohmer KA, Zandi PP. No advantage of A beta 42-lowering NSAIDs for prevention of Alzheimer dementia in six pooled cohort studies. Neurology. 2008;70(24):2291-8.

  • Zandi PP, Belmonte PL, Willour VL, Goes FS, Badner JA, Simpson SG, Gershon ES, McMahon FJ, DePaulo JR Jr, Potash JB; Bipolar Disorder Phenome Group; National Institute of Mental Health Genetics Initiative Bipolar Disorder Consortium. Association study of Wnt signaling pathway genes in bipolar disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry. 2008;65(7):785-93.

  • Zandi PP, Zöllner S, Avramopoulos D, Willour VL, Chen Y, Qin ZS, Burmeister M, Miao K, Gopalakrishnan S, McEachin R, Potash JB, Depaulo JR Jr, McInnis MG. Family-based SNP association study on 8q24 in bipolar disorder. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B (Neuropsychiatric Genetics). 2008;147B(5):612-18.

Projects
Bayesian Hierarchical Models for Individualized Health