$5 Million in New Research Grants Announced through Autism Speaks
December 21, 2007
NEW YORK, NY (December 20, 2007) --
Autism Speaks, an advocacy organization dedicated to raising funds and public
awareness of autism in order to facilitate autism research, today announced that
it has awarded just under $5 million for 40 new research grants to investigate
the causes, biology, diagnosis, and treatment of autism. With the latest round
of grants, the organization has now committed $30 million in science spending
this year.
Most of the new grants awarded in this review cycle are
training grants structured to educate and encourage new scientists to take up
autism research. The Mentor Based Fellowships (MBF) help train young scientists
for careers in autism research, while the Physician Investigator Beginning
Autism Research (PIBAR) awards fund the salaries of physicians who wish to
undertake autism research and thereby contribute their clinical perspective. Two
other grant types, Augmentation grants and Opportunity grants, expand the scope of research projects
already underway by senior scientists.
"These grants will fund research
projects that offer innovative and rigorous approaches to providing urgently
needed answers about autism," said Peter Bell, Autism Speaks executive vice
president of programs and services. "Autism Speaks is committed to incentivizing
the very best scientific minds to pursue research that will not only help us
better understand this disorder, but also improve the lives of individuals
living with autism today."
Several of the new grants deal with treatment
options. A PIBAR grant project will investigate the safety and efficacy of
complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)
therapies in autism (Stephen Bent, M.D.). This project will survey parents
regarding their use of CAM therapies, evaluate all published scientific evidence
of over 50 CAM therapies used in autism, make this information freely available
online, and begin pilot studies of the most promising therapies. This research
will ultimately help families direct their time and money to the CAM therapies most likely to work.
Another MBF
project will develop and evaluate a modified version of the PPPA assessment used
to predict whether a person is likely to respond well to Pivotal Response
Training. It will allow quicker assessments by autism service providers in
community settings (Laura Schreibman, Ph.D.).
One project funded by an
Opportunity grant is following the development
of 187 children with autism as they grow into adolescents (Catherine Lord,
Ph.D.), looking for predictors of adolescent outcome, measured in terms of
adaptive skills, quality of life, positive affect, behavior problems, and
symptoms of anxiety and depression. This research will identify coping
strategies that positively influence the well being and independence of young
adults with autism, and help parents prepare for the future.
Researchers
have been working to identify autism subtypes, known as endophenotypes, because
people of the same endophenotype may share a similar etiology, or cause, for
their autism. Three new grants are looking for endophenotypes based on different
traits. One MBF will evaluate an endophenotype based on temperament (Susan
Bryson, Ph.D.). Previous research has shown that a subset of people with autism
share a flat affect, high anxiety, and poor control of attention, and that
high-risk children who fit this temperament go on to develop autism. The new
project tests the reliability of this temperament endophenotype by following the
development of these children into their preschool years.
Another MBF
grant will search for an endophenotype based on motor abilities by evaluating
coordination in children with autism and their siblings (John Constantino,
M.D.). This project includes a sizable African-American population, and may
potentially uncover any differences in autism presentation among other ethnic
groups. Identifying endophenotypes in autism may not only simplify the search
for autism's causes, but it may also lead to tools for earlier diagnosis and
more individually-tailored treatments.
Several newly funded projects
explore how factors during pregnancy might increase autism risk. One MBF project
will investigate whether women with a diet low in omega-3 fatty acids are at an
increased risk of having a child with autism (Susan Santangelo, Sc.D.). Two
other MBF grants will investigate how immune responses during pregnancy might
adversely affect a developing fetus. One will study whether exposure to an
immune system compound called interleukin-2 (IL-2) during pregnancy results in
offspring with brain inflammation, similar to that found in some individuals
with autism (Nicholas Ponzio, Ph.D.). The other will study maternal antibodies
that mistakenly target fetal brain tissue, which have been found in some mothers
who have children with autism (Judy Van de Water, Ph.D.).
Two MBF grants
will investigate abnormal gene expression among people with autism, searching
for genes that have been inappropriately silenced either by DNA methylation
(Arthur Beaudet, M.D.) or by microRNAs (Stephen Scherer, Ph.D.). These research
projects will identify abnormal gene expression profiles in autism, and clarify
how these genetic defects, perhaps in combination with environmental factors,
result in autism.
Several MBF grants will investigate the brain
abnormality most consistently found in autism: enlarged and disorganized "white
matter" pathways that connect neurons in one part of the brain with neurons in
another. One project will use post-mortem tissue from people with autism for a
close-up examination of these pathways to find reasons for the enlargement
(Helen Barbas, Ph.D.). Another project will use non-invasive imaging of white
matter in people with autism to describe the full length of pathways involved in
language development (Janet Lainhart, M.D.). Another will use functional brain
imaging (fMRI) to see what areas of the brain are activated together during a
visual task in people with autism (Marcel Just, Ph.D.). Finally, another project
will use a mouse model of autism to explore the molecular processes that
initially guide axons to their targets during development (Mustafa Sahin,
Ph.D.); this will clarify how the brain may become miswired in autism.
Lay abstracts describing all 41 of the newly funded grants can be found
here.
Further research grant announcements, including Innovative Technology grants
that will be announced in early 2008 and a Spring 2008 grant round devoted
entirely to treatment-related research, will be made on www.autismspeaks.org.
Read summaries of the funded research grants here.