By Danny Freedman
George Washington’s plans to advance research and scientific discovery in autism—one of several key areas identified last fall—have begun to come together in the form of a new research center.
Plans for the GW Autism Research, Treatment and Policy Institute took a step forward last week, with university officials and faculty members presenting their blueprint to a team of outside experts on autism, who will help plot the path ahead.
The group—comprising three scientists from the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine and the nonprofit research-funding and advocacy group Autism Speaks—is anticipated to report back soon.
The autism institute would be a partnership with the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders at Children’s National Medical Center, according to Vice President for Research Leo Chalupa.
The institute’s scientists and physicians would strive to bolster the knowledge and treatment of autism from several angles, including providing assessments and treatments (like medication or therapy to sharpen social skills), conducting research and clinical trials, and becoming a hub of public policy analysis on the topic.
The general term “autism” refers to a group of neurodevelopmental disorders that fall along a spectrum. Autism spectrum disorders often are typified by impairments with communication and social interactions; they are estimated to impact perhaps as many as 1-in-100 children and adults, most commonly males.
“The progress has just been remarkable,” says Valerie Hu, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology who began working on the project just under a year ago.
Dr. Hu, who led the faculty planning committee, says that more than 30 faculty members across the university are working on autism research or research in related fields. “That’s a huge group of people right here,” she says. “If we pull our expertise together, I think we can bring to the table new perspectives that are really going to aid research and push it forward. I think that’s how you make progress, by bringing new perspective into a field.”
Autism-related efforts at the university currently range from explorations of the brain and its development, to studying the use of art therapy for autistic patients; from training teachers to work with kids with emotional and behavioral disabilities, to analyzing health care policy and research methodology; from studying the effect of culture in identifying and treating autism, to Dr. Hu’s search for biological hallmarks that could be used to a diagnose the disorder.
Several of these faculty members will be participating in a town hall-style panel discussion on autism on March 10 (at 11 a.m. in Marvin Center room 301), as part of the GW Medical Center’s annual Research Day.
Last October President Steven Knapp announced a plan to double the university’s investment in learning and research for the next five years—amounting to an extra infusion of $60 million each year. The new direction, he said at the time, seeks to match “the excellence of our instruction with the strength of our research.”
“There is no more exciting way to learn than to work with a professor who is pushing a frontier of knowledge,” said Dr. Knapp.
Six initial areas of focus were identified, based on the input of faculty and deans: autism, computational biology, science policy, sustainability, neglected diseases and energy. In the meantime, four additional topics have been added to the list: the global status of women, the arts, cancer and global security.
Plans for some of these areas are developing swiftly, particularly neglected diseases: In February, the National Institutes of Health awarded the university a $15 million grant to establish the Research Center for the Neglected Diseases of Poverty, to be housed in the GW Medical Center’s Ross Hall.