As part of its commitment to open science, the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) is funding 16 projects through its 2025 Data Analysis awards. This award is designed to encourage the use of large, publicly available data resources by providing investigators with the support needed to allocate time and personnel toward working in and publishing from these previously collected data. Priority was given to applications that make use of SFARI-supported resources such as SPARK and Simons Searchlight.
Awards from the 2025 cycle will provide over $4.9 million in total funding to 16 projects. These grants will be funded by Simons Foundation International and administered by SFARI.
“SFARI believes strongly in data sharing and open science,” says Kelsey Martin, Simons Foundation executive vice president of autism and neuroscience. “We’re proud to continue expanding access to this rich data and providing the resources needed to fully leverage them.”
Yoseph Barash (University of Pennsylvania)
Integrating deep learning with splicing-QTL and splicing-TWAS to uncover hidden causal variants in autism spectrum disorders
Ilan Dinstein (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
Dissecting mechanisms of hyperarousal in autism and related disorders using the Simons Sleep Project
Timothy Dunn (Duke University)
Quantitative co-profiling of social behavior across species to identify conserved phenotypic elements of autism
John Greally with Raj Srilakshmi (Albert Einstein College of Medicine)
The contribution of functional non-coding variants in glutamatergic neurons to autism
Hungoo Lee (Johns Hopkins University) and Hyejung Won (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
The hidden genome: Repetitive DNA in autism spectrum disorders
Dara Manoach with Dimitrios Mylonas (Massachusetts General Hospital)
Abnormal sleep oscillations in relation to disturbed sleep in adolescents with autism and their siblings
Peter Park (Harvard University)
Trisomy rescues and mosaic chromosomal alterations in autism spectrum disorder
Katherine Pollard (J. David Gladstone Institutes)
Modeling the gene regualtory effects of structural variants in autism
Angelica Ronald (University of Surrey) with Tomoki Arichi and Harriet Cullen (King’s College London)
Harnessing new discoveries in infant genetics to deliver innovations in understanding autism
Yufeng Shen (Columbia University)
Elucidating the role of rare variants in genetic architecture of autism and genetic diagnosis through the lens of natural selection
Varun Warrier (University of Cambridge)
SHAReD – SFARI Heterogeneity in Autism- Reanalysis of Data
The following projects are operating as a consortium to facilitate collaboration between those working on related projects at neighboring institutions:
Hilary Finucane and Mark Daly (Massachusetts General Hospital)
Identification of protein interaction interfaces disrupted in autism through structural analysis of exome-sequencing data
Luke O’Connor (Harvard University)
Functionally informed model for de novo coding mutations in autism
Elise Robinson (Massachusetts General Hospital)
How does common polygenic variation create risk for autism?
Kaitlin Samocha (Massachusetts General Hospital)
Investigating genetic burden between autistic individuals and their siblings
Michael Talkowski with Harrison Brand (Massachusetts General Hospital)
Systematic analysis of the complete mutational spectrum of structural variation associated with autism and a continuum of developmental disorders from short-read and long-read genome sequencing
In addition, SFARI intends to provide funding for the following related projects that create data resources for the research community:
Maximilian Haeussler with David Haussler (University of California, Santa Cruz)
From SPARK to insight: visual data portals for autism sequencing datasets
Arjun Krishnan (University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus)
AutismAtlas: Engineering serendipity in autism research by transforming data discovery and creating opportunities for data integration
