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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2005;293:921.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

An international partnership of organizations has formed to fund research aimed at identifying the genes associated with autism spectrum disorders, a range of conditions that impair thinking, feeling, language, and the ability to relate to others. The National Institutes of Health is heading up the coalition, which includes the Canadian and Irish governments and 3 private autism foundations. The group will provide more than $21 million for autism studies over 5 years, and it is requesting applications that will undergo peer review this summer (http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-MH-05-007.html). Funding will be awarded in the fall.

Autism is thought to have both genetic and environmental determinants. Several chromosomal regions have been associated with autism, but few specific genes have been identified. The coalition hopes to fund research that assesses the functional significance of autism-associated genetic variants that may help subdivide autism spectrum disorders into identifiable, distinct disorders with different . . . [Full Text of this Article]