Michael Wigler News Today

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder typically characterized by impaired social and communication skills combined with repetitive movements.

Scientists have long assumed that autism-related genetic mutations come from the mother. Researchers from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) are challenging this belief with a recently published study. They say the father’s genes may actually play a greater role than previously thought, especially in families with multiple children on the autism spectrum.

/PRNewswire/ -- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) researchers have flipped the script on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) genetics. Scientists long thought...

Autism spectrum disorder affects about 1 in 36 children in the U.S. While the genetics of autism are complex, scientists had narrowed it down to moms being more likely carriers. Or so they thought! CSHL scientists have now discovered that dad’s genome may play a bigger genetic role. This suggests other neurological disorders may follow a similar pattern.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory researchers have flipped the script on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) genetics.

People with the autism-linked syndrome lack a protein implicated in several cancers, but it’s unclear whether — or how — they are protected from malignancies.

Columbia’s cancer research program began in earnest more than a century ago when the millionaire son of a railroad magnate, after losing his wife to