Matthew C.ÌýKeller

  • Director
  • Professor
  • INSTITUTE FOR BEHAVIORAL GENETICS
  • PSYCHOLOGY & NEUROSCIENCE
Address

Institute for Behavioral Genetics
University of Colorado Boulder
447 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0447

Dr. Keller is recruiting new students for a fall 2026 start date

Applications are typically due mid November; for exact dates please check the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience webpage, if you intend to work with Dr. Keller. Additional information is available on IBG's Prospective Students page.

Research Interests:

Developing models to understand complex trait genetics. Using family-based GWAS datasets to estimate direct genetic effects and the environmental influences of parents on offspring. Modeling and simulating genetically informative designs that better enable us to understand the causes of human differences.

Active Grants:

  • NIMH R01 MH130448Ìý7/2022-6/2027 Causes and consequences of mental disorders: The environmental and genetic influences of parents on offspring. Role: Principal investigator
  • NIMH 2R01 MH100141 2/2013-4/2023 Estimating the genetic and environmental architecture of psychiatric disorders. Role: Principal investigator
  • NIMH R25 MH019918 2/2024-1/2029ÌýWorkshop on statistical genetic methods for human complex traits. Role: Principal investigator
  • NIDA R01 DA054087 5/1/2022 – 4/30/2027 Understanding the links between parental and adolescent substance use: complementary natural experiments using the children of twins design. Role: Co-PrincipalÌýinvestigator
  • NIDA R01 DA046064 4/2018-1/2023 Brain and genetic predictors of individual differences in pain and placebo analgesia. Role: Co-investigator
  • NIDA R01 DA044283 5/2019 – 2/2024 Deep sequencing, phenotyping, and imputation in large-scale biobanks: A novel and cost-effective framework to identify rare mutations associated with addiction. Role: Principal investigator of subcontract
  • NIDA R01 DA053693 4/2024 – 3/2028 Adult Progression of Adolescent Onset Substance Use Disorder in a High Risk Sample. Role: Co-investigator

Additional Resources:

Current CV

Dr. Keller speaks on Evolutionary Behavioral Genetics:Ìý

Keller Current Lab

Keller Former Trainees

Spencer Moore

Masters student

2020-2022

Jared Balbona

Doctoral student

2018-2022

Richard Border

Doctoral student

2014-2019

Emma Johnson

Doctoral student

2012-2017

Teresa de Candia

Doctoral student

2011-2015

Matthew Simonson

Doctoral student

2008-2013

Dan Howrigan

Doctoral student

2008-2012

Laramie Duncan

Doctoral student

2008-2010

Subrata Paul

Postdoctoral trainee

2020-2021

Meng Huang

Postdoctoral trainee

2020-2021

Rasool Tahmasbi

Postdoctoral trainee

2015-2018

Luke Evans

Postdoctoral trainee

2015-2018

Doug Bjelland

Postdoctoral trainee

2013-2016

Christine Garver-Apgar

Postdoctoral trainee

2008-2011

Publications

Keller News

Keller Highlighted Publications

This paper explores the potential benefits of family-based biobank sampling, a strategy that intentionally oversamples close genetic relatives rather than relying on random population-based recruitment. We argue that family-based biobanks can enhance causal inference in genetic studies, reduce confounding effects from shared environmental and demographic factors, and unlock new insights across multiple research domains. Given the limitations of traditional biobanks, this perspective highlights how integrating family-based designs could advance our understanding of genetic influences on health and disease, despite the added complexity and cost.

(Nature, 2024)

This article showed for the first time that estimates of SNP-heritability are upwardly biased for traits for which there is assortative mating (i.e., on traits that are correlated between mates, and when that correlation is due to matching based on the phenotype). For example, mates are similar on height, and this leads to a ~20% inflation of SNP-heritability estimates on height. This paper was the precursor to a subsequent paper by Border that showed potentially more serious biases on genetic correlations due to cross-trait assortative mating.

(Nature Communications, 2022)

This paper won the Fulker Award for best paper published in Behavioral Genetics in 2021. In it,Ìýwe introduce a model (SEMPGS) that demonstrates how to use polygenic scores derived from transmitted and non-transmitted parental haplotypes to giveÌýan unbiased estimate of the variation attributable to the environmental influence of parents on offspring, even when the polygenic score accounts for a small fraction of trait heritability.ÌýBy utilizing structural equation modeling techniques developed for extended twin family designs, our approach provides a general framework for modeling polygenic scores in family studies and allows for various model extensions that can be used to answer old questions about familial influences in new ways.

(Behavior Genetics, 2021)

This article showed that genomic similarity is trivially inflated by assortative mating, contrary to several recent publications showing increased similarity among mates or friends. Our paper argues that such inflated similarity is probably due to uncontrolled population stratification instead.

(Behavior Genetics, 2020)

This article used very large sample sizes to show somewhat definitively (in my opinion) that previous positive "candidate gene" findings on depression (of which there are many hundred) were almost certainly false positive findings. Our paper further calls into question tests on candidate gene hypotheses for most other traits. We argue that hypothesis-free genome-wide scans, which are about as cheap as candidate gene assays, produce much more reliable results and that the traditional candidate gene approach should be abandoned.
Ìý
(The American Journal of Psychiatry, 2019)
This article compared multiple approaches for estimating SNP-heritability, and introduced a variation on previous approaches (GREML-LDMS-I) that is substantially more accurate.
Ìý
(Nature Genetics, 2018)