Since 2020, the UNC Autism Research Center has provided pilot grant funding for interdisciplinary autism research at UNC-Chapel Hill. To stimulate multidisciplinary collaborations and incentivize faculty to generate pilot data for use in grants to the NIH and other external agencies, the Center has awarded several interdisciplinary research grants. This is an archive of the grants funded by the UNC Autism Research Center.

FALL 2020

Damaris Lorenzo, Ph.D., and Toshihide Hige, Ph.D.

Study Title: Understanding the synaptic pathways of pathogenic variants in novel ASD gene SPTBN1

Research Impact: This project will advance autism research by uncovering disease mechanisms underlying pathogenic variants in SPTBN1, a novel ASD gene. This will shed light into the cytoskeleton as a functional node in ASD pathology and demonstrate the power of transgenic flies to screen and functionally characterize genetic variants associated with ASD.

(This $50K grant was co-funded  by the UNC Autism Research Center and the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute)

SPRING 2021

Rebecca Grzadzinski, Ph.D., and Jose Rodriguez-Romaguera, Ph.D.

Study Title: Elucidating the Neurocircuitry of Atypical Social Arousal in ASD

Research Impact: Capitalizing on the cross-disciplinary collaboration of Drs. Grzadzinski and Rodriguez-Romaguera, this project examines pupillary responses to social stimuli in infants at low and high familial likelihood for ASD. Data gathered will provide the foundation for a series of larger, high-impact translational studies that mechanistically dissect the neurocircuitry underlying dysfunctional social arousal in ASD.

(This $50K grant was co-funded by the UNC Autism Research Center, the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute, and the UNC Neuroscience Center)

Jessica Girault, Ph.D., and Jason Stein, Ph.D.

Study Title: Determining the role of neural progenitor proliferation in explaining interindividual differences in autism-related behaviors

Research Impact: This project will be the largest within-family, case-control iPSC study in ASD. Results will serve as preliminary data for future grant applications to study the pathogenesis of brain overgrowth in ASD as a potential target for pre-symptomatic intervention. iPSC cell lines will be a renewable resource available to other investigators within the UNC ASD research community.

(This $50K grant was co-funded by the UNC Autism Research Center, the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute, and the UNC Neuroscience Center)