Peer review panels really can suss out good science, and clinical trials could get extremely personal.

Newt Gingrich wants to double spending on medical research, and Chinese researchers highlight the hazards of editing human genomes.

Through a clever combination of sequencing genes and tracing family ties, Icelandic researchers have gathered genomic information for nearly one-third of their nation’s population.  

Looking in families with a history of severe autism among women, researchers have unearthed 18 new candidate genes for the disorder. One of these genes, delta-catenin, plays a critical role in brain development, researchers reported yesterday in Nature.

Newly developed microscopic beads give cells unique barcodes based on the cells’ gene expression patterns. This faster and cheaper system could help researchers study autism in cultured cells.

A new method allows researchers to extract chromatin — the DNA-protein complex that helps to regulate gene expression — from tissue samples weighing as little as 1 milligram.

A cluster of neurons helps monkeys cooperate, and a human gene makes a mouse brain look like a person’s.

A new study maps the many targets of the autism gene TBR1, but it’s just one small piece of a much bigger picture.

Less than one-third of sibling pairs with autism who carry rare mutations in autism-linked genes share those mutations, according to the largest study yet to sequence whole genomes of people with the disorder. The study questions the assumption that autism’s risk factors run in families, but some experts are skeptical.

A new database that maps changes in gene expression in the prefrontal cortex shows that autism-linked genes are expressed differently than other genes through six stages of life.