Faculty

Bernie J Devlin, PhD

Professor of Psychiatry and Clinical and Translational Science

Contact Details

3811 O'Hara St.
Pittsburgh
 
PA
 
15213
Email
Website
Computational Genetics Program

Education & Training

PhD
Botany, Pennsylvania State University

Professional Affiliations

Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Member, American Society of Human Genetics
Member, International Society for Autism Research

Selected Honors & Awards

MERIT Award, National Institute of Mental Health
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Statistics, Section U

Research Interests

Genetic basis of disease and disorders; Statistical genetics; Genomics, transcriptomics & proteomics
Selected Research Publications & Products
  1. Fu JM, Satterstrom FK, Peng M, Brand H, Collins RL, Dong S, Wamsley B, Klei L, Wang L, Hao SP, Stevens CR, Cusick C, Babadi M, Banks E, Collins B, Dodge S, Gabriel SB, Gauthier L, Lee SK, Liang L, Ljungdahl A, Mahjani B, Sloofman L, Smirnov AN, Barbosa M, Betancur C, Brusco A, Chung BHY, Cook EH, Cuccaro ML, Domenici E, Ferrero GB, Gargus JJ, Herman GE, Hertz-Picciotto I, Maciel P, Manoach DS, Passos-Bueno MR, Persico AM, Renieri A, Sutcliffe JS, Tassone F, Trabetti E, Campos G, Cardaropoli S, Carli D, Chan MCY, Fallerini C, Giorgio E, Girardi AC, Hansen-Kiss E, Lee SL, Lintas C, Ludena Y, Nguyen R, Pavinato L, Pericak-Vance M, Pessah IN, Schmidt RJ, Smith M, Costa CIS, Trajkova S, Wang JYT, Yu MHC; Autism Sequencing Consortium (ASC); Broad Institute Center for Common Disease Genomics (Broad-CCDG); iPSYCH-BROAD Consortium, Cutler DJ, De Rubeis S, Buxbaum JD, Daly MJ, Devlin B, Roeder K, Sanders SJ, Talkowski ME. Rare coding variation provides insight into the genetic architecture and phenotypic context of autism. Nature Genetics doi: 10.1038/s41588-022-01104-0, 2022. PMID: 35982160
  2. Wang J, Roeder K, Devlin B. Bayesian estimation of cell type-specific gene expression with prior derived from single-cell data. Genome Research 31:1807-1818, 2021. PMID: 33837133
  3. 229.Klei L, McClain LL, Mahjani B, Panayidou K, De Rubeis S, Grahnat AS, Karlsson G, Lu Y, Melhem N, Xu X, Reichenberg A, Sandin S, Hultman CM, Buxbaum JD, Roeder K, Devlin B. How rare and common risk variation jointly affect liability for autism spectrum disorder. Molecular Autism 12:66, 2021. PMID: 34615521
  4. Yurko R, GSell M, Roeder K, Devlin B. A selective inference approach for FDR control using multi-omics covariates yields insights into disease risk. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117:15028-15035, 2020. PMID: 32522875
  5. Breen MS, Dobbyn A, Li Q, Roussos P, Hoffman GE, Stahl E, Chess A, Sklar P, Li JB, Devlin B, Buxbaum JD; Common Mind Consortium. Global landscape and genetic regulation of RNA editing in cortical samples from individuals with schizophrenia. Nature Neuroscience 22:1402-1412, 2019. PMID: 31455887

Pitt Psychiatry’s 2025 Research Day, Part I: A Celebration of Science

Research Day Attendees

The 23rd annual Department of Psychiatry Research Day, held on June 12, 2025, was the most highly attended Research Day ever, with 653 faculty members, trainees, and staff gathering at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum on the University of Pittsburgh campus. Lunchtime Roundtables More than 300 individuals participated in or facilitated one of 30 roundtable discussion groups focused on topics including...

Rare Coding Variation Provides Insight into the Genetic Architecture and Phenotypic Context of Autism

Dr. Bernie Devlin

An international consortium of scientists from fields including psychiatry, genetics, genomics, pediatrics, and statistics have published a study in Nature Genetics reporting the discovery of 185 genes significantly associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and more than 300 genes associated with autism or other types of developmental delay. The consortium evaluated genetic data from a cohort of more than 63...

Rare and Common Genetic Variations Confer Liability for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Devlin & Colleagues Molecular Autism 2021

Among scientists working in the field of autism spectrum disorder research, two models represent the most common understanding of the disorder’s genetic underpinnings: one posits that rare risk variants invariably have large impact on liability; the other emphasizes the major role played by common variations with small effects. On a population level, the common variation likely plays the dominant role in liability...

From the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology: Heterogeneous Trajectories of Problematic Alcohol Use, Depressive Symptoms, and their Co-Occurrence in Young Adults with and without Childhood ADHD

Wang et al. J Abnormal Child Psychology 2020

Are individuals who experience childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at greater risk for co-occurring problematic alcohol use and depressive symptoms in adulthood? In a recent study, researchers including Pitt Psychiatry investigators Frances Wang, PhD, Sarah Pedersen, PhD, Bernie Devlin, PhD, and Brooke Molina, PhD, examined heterogeneity among those with childhood ADHD that could be associated...