The National Database for Autism Research announces its first data release

November 30, 2010

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) researchers now can use data from over 10,000 participants enrolled in ASD studies. The National Database for Autism Research (NDAR), created by the National Institutes of Health, recently made the data available. Researchers can now use the NDAR portal to perform queries that simultaneously yield results from multiple datasets. The portal was designed to provide tools to define and standardize data collected by different laboratories under different protocols. It was also built to ensure a collaborative approach and open data access to the whole ASD research community.

Researchers supported through the NIH Centers of Excellence were the first to contribute data to NDAR in 2008. Since then, NDAR staff has been working to define, standardize and transfer data into NDAR from earlier NIH programs, such as the Collaborative Programs of Excellence in Autism (CPEA) and Studies to Advance Autism Research and Treatment (STAART).

Data from the majority of ASD grants that were recently funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, as well as data from other ASD studies conducted at NIH, also will be submitted to and shared through NDAR. It is expected that data from newly-initiated NIH-funded autism research will be added to NDAR. Other ASD researchers have also been encouraged to contribute their study data, regardless of funding source.

Two goals were outlined in the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee 2010 Strategic Plan for ASD Research. The first goal is to create mechanisms to specifically support the contribution of data to NDAR from 90 percent of newly initiated projects by 2012. The second goal is to link NDAR by 2012 with other significant existing data resources including the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange; the Interactive Autism Network; the National Institute of Mental Health's (NIMH) Genetics Repository; the NIMH Transcriptional Atlas of Human Brain Development; and the Pediatric MRI Data Repository.

The Autism Genetic Resource Exchange is an electronic data repository housing information from more than 1,000 families affected by ASD. It is created by the advocacy group Cure Autism Now and is currently supported by Autism Speaks.

The Interactive Autism Network is an online project of the Kennedy Krieger Institute with funding from Autism Speaks, which contains data on 30,000 individuals with an ASD diagnosis whose families have voluntarily submitted information of interest to scientists.

The NIMH Genetics Repository stores clinical data, biological materials, and genetic analysis data from more than 3,000 individuals with ASD.

The NIMH Transcriptional Atlas of Human aims to map when and where in the brain genes are transcribed through development.

The Pediatric MRI Data Repository receives support from four NIH institutes including the National Institute of Mental Health, and stores data from more than 500 typically developing children, from birth to young adulthood.

More information: http://www.hhs.gov/recovery

Provided by National Institutes of Health


Rank not rated yet
Relevant PhysicsForums posts

More news stories

Tongue analysis software uses ancient Chinese medicine to warn of disease

For 5,000 years, the Chinese have used a system of medicine based on the flow and balance of positive and negative energies in the body. In this system, the appearance of the tongue is one of the measures used to classify ...

Medicine & Health / Other

created 37 minutes ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Most occupational injury and illness costs are paid by the government and private payers

UC Davis researchers have found that workers' compensation insurance is not used nearly as much as it should be to cover the nation's multi-billion dollar price tag for workplace illnesses and injuries. Instead, almost 80 ...

Medicine & Health / Health

created 38 minutes ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Of mice and mental models: Neuroscientific implications of risk-optimized behavior in the mouse

(Medical Xpress) -- Regardless of an organism’s biological complexity, every encephalized animal continuously makes under-informed behavioral choices that can have serious consequences. Despite its ubiquity, ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created 9 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast feature

Skp2 activates cancer-promoting, glucose-processing Akt

HER2 and its epidermal growth factor receptor cousins mobilize a specialized protein to activate a major player in cancer development and sugar metabolism, scientists report in the May 25 issue of Cell.

Medicine & Health / Cancer

created 3 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Cancer may require simpler genetic mutations than previously thought

Chromosomal deletions in DNA often involve just one of two gene copies inherited from either parent. But scientists haven't known how a deletion in one gene from one parent, called a "hemizygous" deletion, can contribute ...

Medicine & Health / Cancer

created 6 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast


It's in the genes: Research pinpoints how plants know when to flower

Scientists believe they've pinpointed the last crucial piece of the 80-year-old puzzle of how plants "know" when to flower.

Yahoo kills 'Livestand' just 6 months after debut

(AP) -- Yahoo is killing a tablet magazine called Livestand just six months its debut on the iPad.

Dragon makes history with space station docking

The private company SpaceX made history Friday with the docking of its Dragon capsule to the International Space Station, the most impressive feat yet in turning routine spaceflight over to the commercial ...

High-speed method to aid search for solar energy storage catalysts

Eons ago, nature solved the problem of converting solar energy to fuels by inventing the process of photosynthesis.

Researchers solve structure of human protein critical for silencing genes

In a study published in the journal Cell on May 24, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists describe the three-dimensional atomic structure of a human protein bound to a piece of RNA that "guides" the pr ...

Dragon arrives at space station in historic 1st (Update 2)

The privately bankrolled Dragon capsule made a historic arrival at the International Space Station on Friday, triumphantly captured by astronauts wielding a giant robot arm.