The Gordon & Llura Gund Foundations donates $3M to support Autism Speaks' Aut10K program

Autism Speaks, the world's leading autism science and advocacy organization, today announced that The Gordon & Llura Gund Foundation and The Gordon & Llura Gund 93 Foundation have donated a combined $3 million to support Autism Speaks' Autism Ten Thousand Genomes (Aut10K) program to sequence the world's largest collection of whole genomes of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their family members.

The generosity of the Gund Foundations' will significantly enhance the science and technology networks of Autism Speaks and its collaborators, enabling the organization to continue its discoveries in the research of genomics of ASD in ways that will have real-life medical impacts on individuals and families. Distributed over a three-year period, the Gund Foundations' gifts will contribute to the sequencing, data processing and analysis of over 3,000 genomes. An initial distribution of $1 million will fund Autism Speaks' Aut10K "Expansion Phase," which will invest in growing the sequence repository using the Autism Speaks Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE) library.

"We are incredibly grateful to Gordon and Llura Gund and their foundations for their support in the next stage of Autism Speaks' Autism Ten Thousand Genomes program," said Bob Wright, co-founder of Autism Speaks. "Thanks to their generous gift, the Aut10K project can embark on furthering its full genome sequencing collection leading to one of the largest assemblies of genomes-a resource that will be revolutionary for families and science."

Genetic research has transformed knowledge of what causes or contributes to the development of ASD. Results from the first phase of the Aut10K program, published online in American Journal of Human Genetics, have already advanced understanding of ASD, and, in some cases, provided information useful in guiding diagnosis and treatment.

"Thanks to The Gordon & Llura Gund 93 Foundation and The Gordon & Llura Gund Foundation, Autism Speaks can push the pace of genetic sequencing to the next level," said Robert Ring, Ph.D., chief science officer of Autism Speaks. "This next phase, the 'Expansion Phase,' has the potential to pave the way to life-changing discoveries that will benefit individuals and families touched by autism."