Rachel L. Kember

About

Rachel L. Kember, M.Sc., Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. She is a member of the Penn Center for Global Genomics & Health Equity Research, a Health Science Specialist at the Cpl. Michael J. Crescenz Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and a Senior Fellow at the Penn Institute for Biomedical Informatics. Her research focuses on identifying the complex phenotypic and genomic interactions that lead to substance use and psychiatric diseases, utilizing computational genetics methods in electronic health record datasets linked to biobanks. Her work aims to advance understanding of the genetic underpinnings of substance use disorders and psychiatric conditions, contributing to the development of precision medicine approaches.

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Medicine
• Psychiatry
• Clinical psychology
• Evolutionary biology
• Psychology
• Internal medicine
• Computational biology
• Developmental psychology

Selected publications

• The power of genetic diversity in genome-wide association studies of lipids

  Nature · 2021 · 1032 citations

  DOI

• A saturated map of common genetic variants associated with human height

  Nature · 2022 · 877 citations

  ) account for 40% (45%) of phenotypic variance in populations of European ancestry but only around 10-20% (14-24%) in populations of other ancestries. Effect sizes, associated regions and gene prioritization are similar across ancestries, indicating that reduced prediction accuracy is likely to be explained by linkage disequilibrium and differences in allele frequency within associated regions. Finally, we show that the relevant biological pathways are detectable with smaller sample sizes than a…

  DOI

• Genome-wide meta-analysis of problematic alcohol use in 435,563 individuals yields insights into biology and relationships with other traits

  Nature Neuroscience · 2020 · 402 citations

  Problematic alcohol use (PAU) is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Although genome-wide association studies have identified PAU risk genes, the genetic architecture of this trait is not fully understood. We conducted a proxy-phenotype meta-analysis of PAU, combining alcohol use disorder and problematic drinking, in 435,563 European-ancestry individuals. We identified 29 independent risk variants, 19 of them novel. PAU was genetically correlated with 138 phenotypes, including sub…

  DOI

• Large-scale genome-wide association study of coronary artery disease in genetically diverse populations

  Nature Medicine · 2022 · 338 citations

  DOI

• Multivariate analysis of 1.5 million people identifies genetic associations with traits related to self-regulation and addiction

  Nature Neuroscience · 2021 · 329 citations

  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• Henry R. Kranzler

  Washington University in St. Louis

  305 shared

• Joel Gelernter

  263 shared

• Amy C. Justice

  175 shared

• Sylvanus Toikumo

  146 shared

• Emily E. Hartwell

  University of Pennsylvania

  132 shared

• Scott M. Damrauer

  128 shared

• Hang Zhou

  Sun Yat-sen University

  118 shared

• Ke Xu

  Yale University

  106 shared

Labs

• Rachel L. Kember LabPI

Similar researchers at University of Pennsylvania

• John Q. Trojanowskih-296
• Craig B. Thompsonh-277
• Daniel J Raderh-236