Zhifeng Zhou, Ph.D., with LNG since 2002, is a molecular biologist who works on human and animal genetic models to uncover genetic variations, gene expression and epigenetic changes related to alcohol and drug addictions. Dr. Zhou conducted research projects which uncovered multilevel effects of haplotype-based Neuropeptide Y (NPY) gene expression variation on emotion and identified extensive common and substance-specific changes in genome-wide transcription and histone methylation in postmortem hippocampus of cocaine addicts and alcoholics. His work using selectively bred animal lines also identified a causal role of metabotropic glutamate receptor 2 (mGluR2) in altered alcohol preference in alcohol-preferring (P) rats.