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Spectrum: Autism Research News

Video: New European project aims to speed drug research

by  /  13 November 2011
THIS ARTICLE IS MORE THAN FIVE YEARS OLD

This article is more than five years old. Autism research — and science in general — is constantly evolving, so older articles may contain information or theories that have been reevaluated since their original publication date.

As every researcher knows, there is a wide chasm between basic scientists and pharmaceutical companies, and it’s at least in part the reason for the dearth of innovative drugs for disorders such as autism.

In late 2007, the European Commission and the pharmaceutical industry association EFPIA launched a public-private program aimed at closing this gap. The so-called Innovative Medicines Initiative has a €2 billion budget to support shared research projects between academia and private companies.

Declan Murphy, head of forensic and neurodevelopmental sciences at King’s College London, is the academic lead of one new part of the initiative focused on autism, called the European Union Autism Innovative Medicine Initiative, or EU-AIMS.

Murphy talked to SFARI.org about the project over a lunch break Wednesday at the Cell Symposia: Autism Spectrum Disorders: From Mechanisms to Therapies in Washington, D.C., a satellite conference of the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting.

 

For more reports from the 2011 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, please click here.