5|25: Celebrating Five Years of Autism Science Day 19: First
Successful Autism Genome-Wide Association Study Results In honor
of the anniversary of Autism Speaks’ founding on Feb 25, for the
next 25 days we will be sharing stories about the many
significant scientific advances that have occurred during our
first five years together. Our 19th item, First Successful
Autism Genome-Wide Association Study Results, is from Autism
Speaks’ Top 10 Autism Research Events of 2009. Advances in
technology and analytical methods over the past several years
have enabled a better understanding of genetic risk factors for
ASD. The human genome has over 6 billion DNA nucleotides. Until
recently, it has been extremely difficult for scientists to
compare two groups of individuals – one affected by a condition
versus a comparison group – in terms of their detailed DNA
because such comparisons require the analysis of at least half a
million to a million individual locations in the genome of
thousands of people. New methods, called