$8.3M NIH grant brings

Autism Research Center of Excellence to Atlanta

Atlanta Business Chronicle by Maria Saporta, Contributing Writer

Date: Monday, September 24, 2012, 2:29pm EDT

An Atlanta-based coalition of institutions will receive a $8.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to create an Autism Research Center of Excellence -- one of only three in the United States.

Gov. Nathan Deal will announce the “transformational grant” on Sept. 27 at 10:30 a.m. in the north wing of the Georgia State Capitol.

The grant reinforces the work underway on autism research and treatment through an Atlanta coalition that includes the Marcus Autism Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, the Department of Pediatrics at Emory University’s School of Medicine and the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory.

A driving force behind the coalition is Dr. Ami Klin, who relocated his research and his team from Yale University in January 2011. The extensive team effort included philanthropist Bernie Marcus, the Georgia Research Alliance, top state officials and leaders from Emory and Children’s Healthcare.

Klin is the principal investigator and director of the new Autism Center of Excellence. He also serves as director of the Marcus Autism Center, and he is a GRA eminent scholar and a professor of pediatrics in theEmory School of Medicine.

The ACE grant will study the risk and resilience for autism in infants and toddlers through fundamental research and new screening programs in early infancy.

The research program will seek to diagnose autism in children at an age as early as just a few months old to allow early intervention by parents and professionals to minimize the impact the disability has on children and adults.

It is estimated one in every 88 children is affected by autism and related disorders nationally. The Marcus Autism Center, which worked with 5,676 children in 2011, is the largest autism center in the world by far, serving eight times as many children as other leading centers, Klin said.

At a talk to the Rotary Club of Atlanta on Monday, Klin said Atlanta is positioned to become the leading hub in the country because of the collaboration between all the various partners.

When he was at Yale, Klin had 69 members on his team. In less that two years, the Marcus Autism Center has a team of 182 clinicians and researchers.

The other two national centers receiving NIH grants are the University of California, Los Angeles and Boston University.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012