Irish researchers discover new autism genes as part of major international research project

New autism genes have been discovered by researchers at University College Dublin (UCD) and Trinity College Dublin (TCD) as part of a Global Autism Genome Project, involving 50 institutions worldwide. The findings are published in the international peer-reviewed publication, Nature. The research programme has received significant funding from the Health Research Board in Ireland.

The Irish component of the work of the Autism Genome Project involves a collaboration between UCD and TCD and focused on the identification and study of children with autism and their families from across Ireland (TCD);? the production of the vast amounts of data on the genetic variation in the individuals and their families (UCD); the analysis of the data, some of which is in the present report (UCD and TCD) and the coordination of The Autism Simplex Collection (TASC) project across the international clinical sites (TCD).