Duke's Simon Gregory, PhD, associate professor of medicine (Medical Genetics) will collaborate in an autism study at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Two autism researchers there have each been awarded $12.6 million grants in the latest round of funding from the National Institutes of Health’s Autism Centers of Excellence (ACE) research program.
Dr. Gregory, through the Center for Human Genetics, will examine samples collected from this project to explore how non-DNA based variation predicts response to treatment and the types of genes that are produced during treatment.
UNC researcher Linmarie Sikich, MD of the ASPIRE Research Program at UNC-Chapel Hill, has established the ACE SOARS Network, with leaders in the field of autism research involving medication treatments and genetic influences to treatment. The ACE SOARS Network’s primary objective is to provide the infrastructure necessary to meet the needs of the autism community across the continental United States on an ongoing basis by developing novel treatments to help with core symptoms.