ORIGINAL ARTICLE How Genetic and Other Biological Factors Interact with Smoking Decisions

Despite clear links between genes and smoking, effective public policy requires far richer measurement of the feed-back between biological, behavioral, and environmental factors. The Kavli HUMAN Project (KHP) plans to exploit the plummeting costs of data gathering and tomake creative use of new technologies to construct a longitudinal panel data set thatwould compare favorably to existing longitudinal surveys, both in terms of the richness of the behavioral measures and the cost-effectiveness of the data collection. By developing amore comprehensive approach to char-acterizing behavior than traditional methods, KHP will allow researchers to paint a much richer picture of an individ-ual’s life-cycle trajectory of smoking, alcohol, and drug use, and interactions with other choices and environmental factors. The longitudinal nature of KHP will be particularly valuable in light of the increasing evidence for how smok-ing behavior affects physiology and health. The KHP could have a transformative impact on the understanding of the biology of addictive behaviors such as smoking, and of a rich range of prevention and amelioration policies. Key words: smoking; genetics; deep phenotyping; smoking cessatio