Autism and Immunology

This Boston Club meeting was a follow-up to the Neuroinflammation and Autism Boston Club that the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation held at our Wellesley offices in 2014. Coming out of that meeting, the Foundation, in partnership with the Landreth Family Fund, provided grant support to several investigators working in this area. On October 20th, these investigators presented on the progress of their work.

Developing a Neuropathology of Autism Through Autism BrainNET
Matthew P. Anderson, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School
Faculty, Program in Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School
and Children’s Hospital Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (IDDRC)
Director of Neuropathology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Consultant in Neuropathology, Boston Children’s Hospital
Director (Boston Node) and Clinical Neuropathologist, Autism BrainNET

Staci Bilbo, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Harvard Medical School
Director of Research, Lurie Center for Autism
Massachusetts General Hospital

Effects of perinatal immune activation on the core and co-morbid features of ASD as modeled in mice
William Carlezon Jr., Ph.D.
Professor of Psychiatry
Chief, Division of Basic Neuroscience
Director, Behavioral Genetics Laboratory
McLean Hospital

Maternal Caspr2 reactivity in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Betty Diamond, MD
Professor & Head
Center for Autoimmune and Musculoskeletal Diseases
The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research
Professor of Molecular Medicine and Medicine
Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine

Peter Gregersen, MD
Professor & Director
Robert S. Boas Center for Genomics & Human Genetics
The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research
Professor, Molecular Medicine
Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine

Assessment of glial activation state in young adults with ASD using PET imaging
Jacob Hooker, Ph.D.
Associate Professor in Radiology
Harvard Medical School
Associate Neuroscientist
Massachusetts General Hospital
Director of Radiochemistry
Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging

Systematic evaluation of maternal immune activation mouse model after long-term treatment with colony stimulating factor 1 receptor inhibitor
Tsuneya Ikezu, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics and Neurology
Department of Pharmacology
Boston University School of Medicine

Donna Landreth
Landreth Family Fund
Grandparent of a child with ASD

Robert E. Landreth
Landreth Family Fund
Oil and Natural Gas Exploration and Production
Midland, TX
Grandparent of a child with ASD

Christopher McDougle, Ph.D.
Director
Lurie Center for Autism
Massachusetts General Hospital
Nancy Lurie Marks Professor in Autism
Harvard Medical School

Galen Missig, Ph.D.
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Behavioral Genetics Laboratory
McLean Hospital

Maternal Autoantibodies in a Rat Model of Autism Spectrum Disorder
Judy Van de Water, Ph.D.
Professor of Medicine
Director, Center for Children’s Environmental Health
Associate Director Biological Sciences- UC Davis MIND Institute
Division of Rheumatology/Allergy and Clinical Immunology

2017

The Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation, Wellesley, MA