SFARI

SFARI is accepting applications for funding of Patient Advocacy Group Family Conferences, with a focus on groups in the Simons Searchlight community. This funding is intended to support and enhance the research component of conferences, from scientist presentations to in-person research opportunities for families. It is open to both patient advocacy groups (PAGs) with well-established conferences as well as those in early years of convening families and connecting to science. As they plan their conferences, we encourage PAGs to connect with the SFARI science team who may be able to facilitate connections to scientists with whom to explore possible conference involvement.

The Simons Foundation’s Autism & Neuroscience division is now accepting applications for the next class of its Fellows-to-Faculty Award program. This program supports talented early career scientists by facilitating their transition into tenure-track faculty positions.

SFARI is pleased to announce that Simons Searchlight has released new data from over 5,600 individuals with autism and/or a related neurodevelopmental disorder.

Large-scale genetic studies have now uncovered more than 200 genes that can be linked to neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) or autism. Many of those genes are implicated through gene-damaging heterozygous de novo mutations that result in haploinsufficiency of the affected gene. Identifying such genes opens the door for the development of gene-specific therapeutics like gene replacement therapy. However, gene replacement therapy comes with many challenges, one of them being the risk of overexpression. Therefore, therapeutics that could result in the upregulation of the remaining healthy allele and do not interfere with endogenous regulatory mechanisms of gene expression would be ideal.

SFARI is pleased to launch a new RFA that aims to provide researchers with the support needed to allocate time and personnel toward working with and publishing from previously collected data.