The National Institutes of Health has awarded a total of $100 million over the next five years to support nine Autism Centers of Excellence (ACEs). This endeavor funds large research projects to understand and develop interventions for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Created in 2007, the ACE program is renewed every five years.
ASD is a complex developmental disorder affecting how a person behaves, interacts with others, communicates and learns. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that ASD affects nearly 2% of 8-year-olds in the United States.
The ACE program supports research on the diagnosis, causes of, and interventions for ASD. It also seeks to facilitate innovative and cost-effective services for people with ASD throughout the lifespan. The awards support research at individual centers, which feature collaboration between teams of experts, and at research networks, which involve multiple institutions, dedicated to the study of ASD. Each center and network focus on a specific research topic.
Each ACE will adopt a specific Plan for Enhancing Diverse Perspectives (PEDP) as part of its proposed research project. The PEDP will outline strategies to increase participation of women and individuals from traditionally under-represented groups in the ACE biomedical, behavioral and clinical workforce. Additionally, the PEDP is intended to increase the participation of underrepresented and underserved populations in research.
Community engagement is also a core feature of the ACE program. Each ACE will have an external advisory board that includes individuals with ASD and/or parents of individuals with ASD as members. In addition, ACE investigators will engage with the ASD community to learn about their needs and research concerns and to inform them about research findings and plans for future studies.
The ACE program is supported by NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
The 2022 center grants and principal investigators are as follows:
- Columbia University Health Sciences – Wendy K. Chung, M.D., Ph.D., and Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele, M.D.
- Stanford University – Joachim Hallmayer, M.D.
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – Joseph Piven, M.D.
- Drexel University – Diana Robins, Ph.D., and Diana Schendel, Ph.D.
- Duke University – Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D.
- University of Wisconsin-Madison – Janet Lainhart, M.D., Andrew Alexander, Ph.D., and Brandon Zielinski, M.D., Ph.D.
- University of Pittsburgh – Carla A. Mazefsky, Ph.D.
- University of Virginia – Kevin Pelphrey, Ph.D., Lauren Kenworthy, Ph.D., and Allison Jack, Ph.D.
- Johns Hopkins University – Heather E. Volk, Ph.D., M.P.H., and Christine Ladd-Acosta, Ph.D.
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About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit https://www.nih.gov.
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