With $3.2M from NIH, Hopkins, Chicago Researchers Embark on Autism Genotyping Study

NEW YORK, Oct. 12 (GenomeWeb News) - Researchers led by Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago have won a three-year, $3.2 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to study the genetics of autism, Hopkins said today.

Using Affymetrix microarrays, the scientists plan to study SNPs at 500,000 locations in samples from 465 affected families, including 979 individuals with autism. The samples are provided by the Autism Genetics Initiative Data Archive and the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange.

In addition, the researchers plan to look for genes that are present in extra copies, using digital karyotyping, a technique that looks for additional copies of about 400,000 short stretches of DNA.