Scientists to check gut for possible autism link
Federal grant fuels research by Stanford, biotech firm
Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine and the South San Francisco pharmaceutical company Second Genome Inc. have jointly received a $2.1 million grant to recruit subjects for a study exploring potential links between bacteria in the gut — known as the microbiome — and autism, the company announced Tuesday.
Researchers have long suspected, based on anecdotal evidence, that there may be a link between the microbiome and the severity of an autism diagnosis. There is limited data demonstrating the link in humans, but some studies indicate it may exist in lab mice.
Many children with autism have food allergies or gut conditions such as inflammatory bowel diseases, leading researchers to hypothesize that activity in the gut has a relationship to autism, said Dennis Wall, an associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford who is co-leading the study. With the new grant from the National Institutes of Health, the researchers will attempt to test
“Its a great opportunity to generate more data and do something that’s really conclusive.” Dennis Wall, Stanford researcher
that theory, so doctors can better diagnose and design therapies for people on the autism spectrum.
“The data sets are small, so that’s where this collaboration with Second Genome comes in,” Wall said. “It’s a great opportunity to generate more data and do something that’s really conclusive, to confirm or reject some of these hypotheses.”
Second Genome, a privately held company founded in 2009, develops drugs and therapies by researching the microbiome and its ties to various diseases, including liver and irritable bowel disease. It has received at least $63 million from the venture funds of pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Roche, among other backers. The microbiome has become an area of increased interest for medical researchers over the last decade. That’s in part because the falling cost of DNA sequencing — which is critical to analyzing the trillions of living organisms within the microbiome — is helping scientists better understand how the bacteria affect immune responses in humans, said Sergio Baranzini, who researches human genetics and immunology at UCSF and is not involved in the autism study. That is opening the door to examining the connections between the gut and chronic conditions that were not previously thought of as being directly tied to the microbiome, such as autism, Parkinson’s, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.
The new autism study funded by the NIH grant seeks to recruit 100 pairs of siblings — one who is on the autism spectrum, and one who is not in each pair — between the ages of 2 and 7 who live in the same household and eat similar foods. It is common to study autism incidence within the nuclear family because scientists believe autism is the result of both genetics and environmental factors.
“The main part is to identify compounds that microbes make that are unique to the healthy child and (to) the autistic child,” said Glenn Nedwin, CEO of Second Genome.
Many elements of the study will be conducted remotely, Wall said. Parents can collect their children’s biospecimens — a fecal sample and a saliva sample — and send the specimens to researchers to analyze. Parents can also shoot videos of their children to document their behavior and send them in instead of having to travel to the clinic and have the children be observed in person.
In a novel twist in autism research, the study’s leaders are hoping to use machine learning to assess the children’s behavior in the videos. This would involve software that has an algorithm designed to measure eye contact, smiling, talking and other behaviors.