Program Officer
Dominique Lorang-Leins, Ph.D.
Focus Area
Biographical Summary
Dr. Dominique Lorang-Leins is a Program Officer in the Division of Neuroscience and Behavior at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). She manages an extramural research grant portfolio encompassing a diversity of model organisms to study the molecular, cellular, and behavioral neuroadaptations that occur in specific brain neurocircuitries that result in excessive alcohol consumption across the lifespan, including adolescent binge drinking and alcohol use during pregnancy. This also encompasses research addressing the genetic x environmental stressors, including epigenetic modifications, that regulate neurochemical pathways and modulate synaptic plasticity that contribute to the development of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD).
Dr. Lorang-Leins represents NIAAA on the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Initiative, contributing to funding opportunities for research to (1) discern how early exposure to opioids and other substances, including alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis, may affect development and (2) uncover risks for substance use, mental disorders and other behavioral and developmental problems that emerge during childhood and adolescence, and protective factors that promote resilience and healthy development.
Dr. Lorang-Leins is a NIAAA representative of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) organization which collaborates with NIH Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS) to accelerate biomedical advances by enabling the responsible sharing of clinical and genomic data through both harmonized data aggregation and federated approaches. This partnership will bolster the development of technology standards, tools, and policy frameworks to support responsible sharing of genomic and related health data on a global scale.
Dr. Lorang-Leins received her doctorate in Molecular Neurobiology from CUNY/Mount Sinai School of Medicine where she studied the regulation of the pituitary POMC gene expression. She accepted a position at NIH as a Research Biologist in 2001, then served as a Scientific Review Officer at NIH’s Center for Scientific Review overseeing the Molecular Genetics A and Prokaryotic Cell and Molecular Biology study sections before joining NIAAA in 2018.