Rate My Professor Camron Bryant

Camron D. Bryant is Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the Bouvé College of Health Sciences at Northeastern University, where he directs the Laboratory of Addiction Genetics and serves as a Fellow in the Center for Drug Discovery. He earned a B.Sc. in Psychology (Cum Laude, Departmental Distinction) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1999 and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2006. After completing postdoctoral training in quantitative genetics at the University of Chicago from 2007 to 2011 and serving as Research Associate there until 2012, he joined Boston University School of Medicine as Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics in 2012. He advanced to Associate Professor in 2019, gained a secondary appointment in Psychiatry in 2013, and was promoted to Professor in Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biophysics in 2023 before transitioning to Northeastern University in August 2023, with tenure awarded on entry in December 2023.

Bryant's research integrates rodent forward genetic crosses, multi-omics approaches, gene editing, AAV targeting, and behavioral neuroscience to identify the genetic and neurobiological factors underlying vulnerability to addiction, focusing on opioids and psychostimulants, as well as binge eating and pain. Notable discoveries include the RNA-binding protein hnRNP H as a quantitative trait gene for methamphetamine sensitivity (Yazdani et al., PLOS Genetics, 2015), Cyfip2 as a major genetic factor in binge eating (Kirkpatrick et al., Biological Psychiatry, 2017), and Zhx2 as a transcriptional repressor influencing oxymorphone metabolite brain concentration and oxycodone reward (Beierle et al., Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, 2022). He pioneered near-isogenic reduced complexity crosses to facilitate analysis of complex traits (Bryant et al., Trends in Genetics, 2020). As principal investigator on major NIH grants, such as U01DA050243 on the genetic basis of oxycodone dependence (2020-2025) and U01DA055299 on systems genetics of cocaine traits (2022-2027), his work has advanced pharmacogenomic insights into substance use disorders. Bryant is a Full Member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (elected 2021, Associate Member 2016), past-President of the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society, a standing member of the NIH BRLE study section (2021-2025), and serves on the editorial board of Genes, Brain and Behavior (2022-present). His honors include the IBANGS Outstanding Young Investigator Award for Postdocs (2008), Young Scientist Awards (2013, 2014), and multiple travel awards from ACNP, NIH/NIDA, and IBANGS.