$7.5 Million NIH Grant To Yale For Autism Center Of Excellence

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$7.5 Million NIH Grant To Yale For Autism Center Of Excellence

Main Category: Autism News

Article Date: 28 Apr 2007 - 12:00 PDT

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The Yale Child Study Center has been awarded the Autism Center of

Excellence (ACE) status by the National Institutes of Health. This

highly competitive and prestigious award comes with $7.5 million of

direct funding over five years to the Autism Program led by Ami Klin.

" This is our largest award to date, and signifies a recognition of

the national leadership in research of autism provided by our

interdisciplinary group of clinical scientists, " said Klin, the

Associate Professor of Child Psychology & Psychiatry in the

Child Study Center. " The Yale ACE will further strengthen our

commitment to finding the causes of autism and developing more

effective treatments. "

Klin's colleagues on the Yale ACE include Fred Volkmar,

Schultz, Warren , Kasia Chawarska, Rhea , State,

Elena Grigorenko and ph Chang. The team plans three longitudinal

projects focused on infants with autism aged 12 to 24 months. Another

project involves neuroimaging studies of a cohort of children

evaluated at various stages in their development, first at two years

of age, then at four and eight and finally at 10-years-old. The

researchers hope to trace underlying mechanisms of brain growth and

specialization of individuals with autism. A fifth project focuses on

a family of genes and linked proteins found to be associated with

forms of autism.

Autism is a complex brain disorder that inhibits a person's ability

to communicate and develop social relationships, and it is often

accompanied by extreme behavioral challenges. Autism affects about

two million Americans. Autism Spectrum Disorders are diagnosed in one

in 150 children in the United States and affects four times as many

boys as girls. Researchers do not know how many subtypes of autism

exist. There are probably several causes giving rise to this

neurodevelopmental syndrome, but researchers have found that it is

the most strongly genetic condition among all developmental

disorders.

" The Yale Child Study Center has led the way in research of autism

for several decades, " said Volkmar, the Irving B. Professor of

Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology, and Director of the Yale

Child Study Center. " This award signifies a redoubling of our efforts

in an attempt to meet the magnitude and urgency of the task at hand. "

Key in this effort is the involvement of the Yale Child Study Center

Developmental Disabilities Clinics and the Yale University Department

of Statistics. A longstanding collaboration with the Yale School of

Medicine Department of Genetics also strengthens the research

program.

The main sponsor of the Yale ACE will be the National Institutes of

Mental Health, in partnership with the National Institute of Child

Health and Human Development and the National Institute on Deafness

and Other Communication Disorders.

In addition to ACE, Yale also received funding for two multi-site

projects. The first is a network focused on neuroimaging studies of

infants at risk for autism led at Yale by Schultz, associate

professor in the Yale Child Study Center and Diagnostic Radiology,

and co-director of the Yale Developmental Neuroimaging Program. This

network will trace mechanisms of brain growth, which are altered in

autism in the first two years of life. The second is a network

focused on gene findings led at Yale by State, the Associate

Professor of Child Psychiatry and Genetics, and Director of the Yale

Program on Neurogenetics. This network signifies the pooling of

resources of the national leaders in genetics research of autism with

a view to speed up the discovery of genes and their mechanisms of

action.

http://www.yale.edu

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