Autism Reality News Beat: Autism Speaks Guest Comment by Professor Valerie Hu

In  GWU Medical Center Study Suggests Autism May Be Treatable  I commented on the press release highlighting the work of Professor Valerie Hu and her colleagues at George Washington University, who claim to have found a way to identify autism disorder using blood. Their study also discovered that drugs that affect the methylation state of genes, drugs currently used in fighting cancer,  might also reverse specific autism effects.  This autism news provides some badly needed good news about possible autism treatments.  

In Beyond genetics: What the new fields of functional genomics and epigenetics are revealing about autism  Autism Speaks offers a guest post from Professor Valerie Hu, a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The George Washington University Medical Center  as well as a mother of a son with ASD.  The comment also offers links to two studies by Professor Hu and her colleagues at GWU. 

Professor Hu describes the functional genomics approach to studying genes employed by the GWU team.  This approach focuses on gene expression explained as the activities of the genes.   The team has in fact published two studies which together, using the functional genomics approach "illustrate two different “epigenetic” mechanisms controlling gene activity in autism that lie beyond genetic mutations".  The studies suggest that some of the symptoms of autism may be reversible by reversing or controlling gene activities.

The Autism Tissue Program of Autism Speaks provided brain tissues used in one of the studies.  I highlight this point here because of the hostility directed at Autism Speaks from anti-cure interest groups like ASAN.  Studies like those by Professor Hu and George Washington University may actually help autistic persons like my son.  Autism Speaks deserves recognition for its contribution to such studies and I thank them for their contribution.

GWU Medical Center Study Suggests Autism May Be Treatable

"As the mother of a now 22-year-old son with an autism spectrum disorder, I hope our studies, as well as those of others, will lead to therapies that are designed to address specific deficiencies that are caused by autism, thus improving the lives of affected individuals.  Since autism is very diverse in the array of symptoms present in any given individual, it is first necessary to be able to identify specific deficits in each individual in order to design and then prescribe the best treatment."

Professor Valerie Hu, George Washington University, Researcher

As reported on UPI.com, Study: Autism may be amenable to treatment, Professor Hu was commenting on the recent GWU study that claims to have found a way to identify autism disorder using blood. The study also discovered that drugs that affect the methylation** state of genes, drugs currently used in fighting cancer,  might also reverse specific autism effects. 

Successful, high functioning persons with Aspergers diagnoses, like university student and Obama  appointee Ari Ne'eman, and businessman, author and speaker John Elder Robison, who do not want parents to describe autism disorders honestly, and who do not want  us to  seek to cure our  own children of their autism disorders  might be alarmed by studies such as the GWU study and by Professor Hu's comments.  This father of a 14 year old boy severely affected by his Autistic Disorder is very pleased to see such studies taking place.

Thank you Professor Hu, and GWU Medical Center,  for your efforts to find treatments to help our autistic loved ones who suffer from the effects of  their autism disorders.  

On behalf of my son, Conor, I say thank you.

**For a helpful (to this humble layperson) explanation of methylation, genes and various diseases and disorders I suggest Silencing of the Genes on the Genome News Network