INI's Jacob Michaelson is part of a network of researchers partnering with the Simons Foundation on a national autism research initiative to connect individuals with a professional diagnosis of autism and their biological family members to research opportunities to advance autism knowledge.
The collaboration, known as SPARK (Simons Foundation Powering Autism Research for Knowledge,) is an online scientific study and community of individuals with autism and their families. Michaelson’s lab is the only Iowa site in the SPARK network and has already built a strong genetic registry of neurodevelopmental conditions, with roughly 900 individuals involved. The trial was launched just a year ago, and the University of Iowa has now partnered with SPARK in enrolling more than 60,000 people, so far, 23,000 of whom have autism.