The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) is pleased to announce that it has awarded 32 grants (19 Pilot Awards and 13 Research Awards) in response to the 2017 Pilot and Research Awards request for applications (RFA).
These grants will support investigator-driven research projects that aim to improve our understanding of autism spectrum disorders and to gain insight that will ultimately lead to novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. The funded projects cover a range of research areas, including genetic, molecular and cellular mechanisms; circuit and behavioral analyses; and clinical studies.
SFARI will provide more than $16 million in funding over the next three years to 41 investigators as part of this award program.
“SFARI is pleased to be funding these grants, which will help advance our understanding of autism spectrum disorders with rigorous and innovative research,” says SFARI Director Louis Reichardt.
Adds John Spiro, SFARI deputy scientific director: “The SFARI science team would like to thank all the researchers who applied and the scientists who advised us on the selection of these proposals from among a large number of highly competitive applications. We’re excited to see how these projects will develop and contribute novel data to shed light on autism spectrum disorders.”
This is the tenth consecutive year that SFARI has awarded grants in response to this call for proposals. Applicants who have submitted a letter of intent for the 2018 Pilot and Research Awards RFA will receive a notification about whether they are invited to submit a full proposal by January 23, 2018.
A complete list of the grants awarded in the 2017 cycle is shown below:
Research Awards
Helen Bateup, Ph.D. (University of California, Berkeley)
The influence of ASD-risk genes on synaptic function in the basal ganglia
Rui Costa, Ph.D. (Columbia University Medical Center)
Biased spatiotemporal dynamics of striatal circuits impact behavior in autism
Hilary Coon, Ph.D. (University of Utah), Anna Docherty, Ph.D. (University of Utah), Gabor Marth, M.D., Ph.D. (University of Utah), Aaron Quinlan, Ph.D. (University of Utah)
Interactions between WGS variation and polygenic risk in ASD
Gerald Crabtree, M.D. (Stanford University)
BAF53b (Actl6b) in autism and neurodevelopmental disorders
James Ellis, Ph.D. (Hospital for Sick Children)
Network activity and translational regulation in SHANK2 ASD neurons
David Ginty, Ph.D. (Harvard University)
Understanding somatosensation deficits in autism spectrum disorder
Antonio Giraldez, Ph.D. (Yale University), Smita Krishnaswamy, Ph.D. (Yale University)
Effect of autism risk genes on neural cell specification
Kasper Lage, Ph.D. (Harvard Medical School)
Brain protein networks perturbed by autism risk genes
James Noonan, Ph.D. (Yale University)
Mapping ASD regulatory networks at cellular resolution in neurodevelopment
John Rubenstein, M.D., Ph.D. (University of California, San Francisco)
Understanding how ASD-risk mutations in the chromatin regulators Pogz and Suv420h1 affect cortical development
Pam Ventola, Ph.D. (Yale Child Study Center), Kevin Pelphrey, Ph.D. (George Washington University)
Measuring selectivity of oxytocin to enhance response to Pivotal Response Treatment in individuals with autism
Marius Wernig, M.D., Ph.D. (Stanford University), Thomas Südhof, Ph.D. (Stanford University)
The neuronal reprogramming factor and autism-associated gene Myt1l
Mingjie Zhang, Ph.D. (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
Mechanistic studies of the interaction between Shank3 and CaMKIIα
Pilot Awards
Kevin Bender, Ph.D. (University of California, San Francisco)
Cellular and circuit effects of SCN2A haploinsufficiency
Benjamin Blencowe, Ph.D. (University of Toronto)
Restoration of a splicing regulatory network commonly disrupted in autism
Gloria Choi, Ph.D. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Delineating neural circuits underlying maternal immune activated autism-like behaviors in mice
Andreas Frick, Ph.D. (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale-ADR-Bordeaux)
Assessing BKCa channel openers for the treatment of sensory hypersensitivity in ASD
Harrison Gabel, Ph.D. (Washington University in St. Louis)
Exploring disruption of DNA methylation in autism spectrum disorders
Zhenglong Gu, Ph.D. (Cornell University)
Mitochondrial DNA mutations in autism spectrum disorder
Bruce Herring, Ph.D. (University of Southern California)
Uncovering Trio’s role in autism spectrum disorder
Elizabeth Jonas, M.D. (Yale University)
Modulation of mitochondrial efficiency to treat fragile X syndrome
David Julius, Ph.D. (University of California, San Francisco)
Molecular mechanisms of sensory transduction in the gut
Arnold Kriegstein, M.D., Ph.D. (University of California, San Francisco)
Investigating cell type-specific molecular pathology in autistic brain
John Lukens, Ph.D. (University of Virginia School of Medicine), Eli Zunder, Ph.D. (University of Virginia School of Medicine)
Cellular and molecular mechanisms of sex bias in maternal immune activation-induced autism
Jeffrey Macklis, M.D. (Harvard University)
Associative circuitry in Bcl11a/Ctip1 ASD mice: Growth cone proteomes and RNA
Emma Meaburn, Ph.D. (Birkbeck University of London), Emily Jones, Ph.D. (Birkbeck University of London)
Delineating neurodevelopmental causal paths to autism symptoms in infancy
Philippe Mourrain, Ph.D. (Stanford University)
Uncovering convergent autism synaptic endophenotypes and candidate drug treatments
Cian O’Donnell, Ph.D. (University of Bristol), Carlos Portera-Cailliau, M.D., Ph.D. (University of California, Los Angeles)
Testing the stability of neural responses to tactile stimuli in fragile X syndrome mice
Kassandra Ori-McKenney, Ph.D. (University of California, Davis)
Elucidating the signaling pathways involved in autism spectrum disorder
David Sulzer, Ph.D. (Columbia University)
Misregulation of striatal neuronal development in autism
Peter Tsai, (University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center)
Cerebello-cortical circuits in autism-related behavior
Timothy Yu, M.D., Ph.D. (Children’s Hospital Boston)
Contributions of rare biallelic recessive mutations in autism
