http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. A New York-based physician-researcher from Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, best known for his research into fertility and twinning, has uncovered a potential connection between autism and a specific growth protein that could eventually be used as a way to predict an infant's propensity to later develop the disease. The protein, called insulin-like growth factor (IGF), is especially involved in the normal growth and development of babies' brain cells. Based on findings of prior published studies, Touro researcher Gary Steinman, MD, PhD, proposes that depressed levels of this protein in the blood of newborns could potentially serve as a biomarker for the later development of autism. However, this connection, described below in greater detail, has never been directly studied. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-uncovers-potential-biomarker-autism-theory.html Autism spectrum disorders Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:10:03 EST news278860131 If designers want to develop effective products for children with autism, they first need to immerse themselves in the group they are targeting. This is the claim made by Helma van Rijn, who will be awarded her PhD for her thesis on this subject at TU Delft on Tuesday 18 September. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-five-step-approach-children-autism.html Autism spectrum disorders Wed, 19 Dec 2012 09:36:08 EST news275132160 From the day her son was diagnosed with autism nine years ago, Stacie Funk has made it her full-time job to find him the best possible help. Hiring lawyers and experts to press her case, she established herself as a mother whose demands could not easily be dismissed. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-autism-hardest.html Autism spectrum disorders Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:50:04 EST news243518485 A clinically extensive and mathematically powerful study of 1000 families with one autistic child and one unaffected sibling has validated a controversial theory of autism's complex genetic causation. The study for the first time estimates the minimum number of locations in the human genome -- 250 to 300 -- where gene copy number variation (CNV) can give rise to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It also sheds new light on the long observed but little understood "gender bias" of autism, an illness that typically manifests by age 3 and affects about four times more boys than girls. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-autism-validates-importance-spontaneous-causal.html Genetics Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:11:23 EST news226757464