The mission of Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics is to study the etiology of psychiatric, substance use, and major biomedical disorders that have a significant behavioral component. VIPBG aligns with the mission, policies, and core values of VCU and reaffirms the importance of integrity, diversity, inclusion, equity and excellence in teaching, research, and service. VIPBG’s research foci include psychiatry, substance abuse, genetic epidemiology, molecular genetics/genomics, and the development of statistical methods and software to analyze complex data. We aim to understand the interplay of genetic, environmental and other factors in public health, to educate the next generation of researchers, and to share findings with the scientific community and the general public.