The National Institutes of Health is refunding and reviving research that aims to identify environmental risk factors for autism and other childhood disorders, reports SFARI.org.
The Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes project will invest $165 million to expand and integrate existing environmental studies by investigators who are already interviewing and collecting biological samples from pregnant women, new mothers and young children.
ECHO replaces the National Children’s Study, which launched in 2000 as the largest ever long-term study of pregnant women and their children in the US. That study’s goal was to follow 100,000 children from before birth to age 21, with investigators interviewing mothers and collecting blood and household environmental samples such as dust. The NIH halted the admittedly ill-managed project last December after cost overruns surpassed $1 billion.
Piggybacking onto existing studies is a faster, more affordable strategy than the one the National Children’s Study took, experts agree. But extracting meaningful data from a mishmash of studies won’t be easy, autism researcher Irva Hertz-Picciotto tells SFARI.
Read the full story at SFARI.org here.
Editor’s note: Autism Speaks continues to fund a broad range of research into environmental risk factors for autism and their relationship to genetic predispositions for the condition. You can explore these research grants – and all the research that Autism Speaks is funding – using this website’s grant search engine here. This work is made possible by the passion and generosity of Autism Speaks’ volunteers, families and donors.
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