FDA Approves Autologous Umbilical Cord Blood Trial To Treat Autism.

HealthDay (10/13, Marcus) reported, "Autism researchers have been given the go-ahead by the US Food and Drug Administration to launch a small study in children with autism that evaluates whether a child's own umbilical cord blood may be an effective treatment." According to HealthDay, "thirty children with the disorder, aged two to seven, will receive injections of their own stem cells from umbilical cord blood banked by their parents after their births. All of the cord blood comes from the Cord Blood Registry, the world's largest stem cell bank." Researchers at California's Sutter Neuroscience Institute are conducting the placebo-controlled trial.

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Research Sheds Light on Why Autism Is More Prevalent in Boys

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/643148.html

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 15 (HealthDay News) -- A new study is helping unravel an enduring mystery surrounding autism: Why boys are much more likely to be affected by the disorder than girls.

An international team led by Dr. John Vincent, of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, examined specific genes in almost 3,000 people with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 246 others with intellectual disability. They then compared that data to genes from more than 10,000 control individuals.

Reporting in the Sept. 15 issue of Science Translational Medicine, the team found that mutations in the PTCHD1 ("patched") gene are linked to inherited forms of autism and intellectual disability in about 1 percent of affected people in the study. It was not found in any of the controls, however.