VIPBG News

By Walker Rogers

Philip Vinhis a fifth-year PhD candidate at VIPBG working in the lab of Dr. Michael Neale. He grew up in the town of Windsor, Connecticut and attended the University of Connecticut, where he earned degrees in Biology and Chemistry. Before joining the VCU Department of Human and Molecular Genetics in 2020, Philip conducted research in a chemistry lab studying environmentally friendly alternatives to common chemicals. As a project coordinator, he also directed programs that assisted first-generation Asian American students at the University of Connecticut in their transition to college life. After completing his bachelor’s degrees, Philip worked as a research assistant for an outpatient psychiatric clinic specializing in treatment-resistant depression. Philip said that this job sparked his interest in psychiatric genetics and ultimately led him to pursue his graduate education at VCU. “It was so rewarding to interact with the patients – and especially to see them improve with effective therapeutics…I knew I wanted to contribute to that research in some way.“

Philip’s dissertation research focuses on causal modeling in psychiatric disorders, a statistical approach used to examine the complex relationships between conditions such as substance use disorder and depression. These disorders can influence each other directly. For example, depression may lead to substance use as a coping mechanism, or substance use may contribute to the development of depression. Alternatively, they might arise from shared genetic factors or environmental influences, such as family history or exposure to stress. Importantly, these causal pathways are not universal. In a recent paper published in Behavior Genetics, Philip and his colleagues introduced a statistical model that accounts for a mixture of causation scenarios using data collected from twin studies. Philip hopes that the development of these models will eventually contribute to clinical practice by improving our understanding of the relationships between psychiatric disorders. This work has the potential to inform patient treatment in the clinic, and Philip said this line of research is a natural progression from his time working with patients. “If I can have even a small impact on patient’s treatments and lives through this research, then all the work will have been worth it.” Another of Philip’s projects uses the rich phenotyping in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development dataset to train machine learning algorithms for developmental predictions – everything from substance use and other behavioral outcomes to brain development metrics.

When Philip is not working in the lab or writing his dissertation, he enjoys traveling. Recently, he’s presented his research or attended workshops at the World Congress of Psychiatric Genetics in Montreal, the Open Data Science Conference in San Francisco, the Behavior Genetics Association in London, and the International Statistical Genetics Workshop in Boulder, Colorado. In 2025, he is planning a trip to Vietnam, where he looks forward to reconnecting with his cultural roots. Closer to home, Philip enjoys playing tennis – and he’s looking for tennis partners, if any students or faculty would like to play. Thanks, Philip, for taking some time to share with us, and we wish him all the best in his research!