Professor receives $10 million grant renewal to study autism in African Americans

A professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine was awarded a $10 million grant renewal last week from the National Institutes of Health to study autism in African Americans, coinciding with the beginning of National Autism Awareness Month.

Autism spectrum disorders are complex developmental conditions that impact learning, social interaction and behavior. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that one in every 88 people have an autism spectrum disorder,

The network grant will be given to Dr. Daniel Geschwind, a professor of neurology, psychiatry and genetics, over a five-year period. Geschwind’s research deals with the genetic causes of autism spectrum disorders. He also serves as the director of the UCLA Center for Autism Research and Treatment.

Geschwind’s lab hopes to find mutations and biomarkers that could help genetically diagnose autism, said Lauren Kawaguchi, the lab manager who helped arrange the grant.

Previously, the lab found a specific genetic mutation that relates to autism. The lab initially received a five-year grant in 2007.

While the lab’s previous studies examined genetic autism characteristics in the general population, the grant renewal will support the lab’s first study focused on African Americans, Kawaguchi said. Researchers hope that looking at a specific population will be a more effective way of understanding autism’s genetic profile, she said.

Other labs from across the U.S. also received grants from the National Institute of Health for autism spectrum disorders for 2007-2012, but Kawaguchi said Geschwind’s lab was the only one to receive a grant renewal.

“What we’re the most proud of is that we’re the only renewal,” Kawaguchi said.

The UCLA lab will coordinate the study with a group of research centers around the United States that will receive a portion of the grant money to support collecting genetic samples from test subjects.

Geschwind is excited that the lab has already been able to identify some of the genes that contribute to autism and engineer cell models to develop new drugs, he stated in an email. The grant research could contribute to understanding the condition in African Americans, he said.

“This will have a big public health impact potentially by extending what we know about Europeans to those with African ancestry and try to understand some of the origins of health disparities in this population,” Geschwind said.

UCLA is a pioneer of autism education as much as research, said Dr. Elizabeth Laugeson, director of The Help Group – UCLA Autism Research Alliance.

The alliance is a collaborative initiative designed to apply clinical research to improve the quality of treatment for autistic children and adolescents. Laugeson is also the director of UCLA’s Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills Clinic, which has launched a social skills curriculum that applies UCLA research to help autistic students make and keep friends.

Laugeson said people with autism often gravitate towards scientific and rules-based disciplines in school, such as math and computer science.

Researchers affiliated with the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills evaluated characteristics of successful socializers and developed a more structured approach towards forming social relationships for autistic students to execute.

The program has been implemented in several Los Angeles schools, Laugeson said.

“People with autism think concretely and independently, so we’re teaching social skills in a way that they can better comprehend,” Laugeson said.

Compiled by Alex Baklajian, Bruin contributor. Contributing reports by Matthew Foresta, Bruin contributor.

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