Grant: Emerging Team Grant: Co-morbidity of brain disorders & other health problems-LOI

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) affect ~1/150 children, making them the most common childhood neurodevelopmental disability. The profound variability of ASDs has confounded attempts to define diagnostic criteria and to identify underlying causes or effective treatments. We have come together as an interdisciplinary research team with expertise spanning medical, molecular and cyto- genetics, neuroinformatics and functional genomics. We are undertaking a major study of autism co-morbidities associated with genomic microdeletion/microduplication syndromes and their respective phenomic and functional genomic correlates for applications toward improved diagnosis, therapies and quality of life for individuals and families living with autism. As an emerging team we offer a synergistic research and training environment integrally linked with community partners for information exchange amongst all stakeholders, including families/individuals on the spectrum, service providers and policymakers.