From the Baltimore Sun:

Paul and Kiely Law, a Baltimore couple, has created a vast computer database to help autism researchers.

Since the Interactive Autism Network was launched more than a year ago by the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, 21,000 families have completed online questionnaires about themselves and autism … Scientists studying other diseases or disorders have created registries, but IAN is by far the largest database of its kind.

The Laws hope that the project accelerates research by linking willing participants with autism researchers and enabling scientists to use the data to find trends or explore hypotheses.

The project has already borne fruit. Reports based on the ever-expanding data are routinely published online.

… “I don’t think I could have dreamed how successful they would be in such a brief period of time,” said Helen Tager-Flusberg, a professor at the Boston University School of Medicine. “It’s been enormously successful in terms of interesting families.”

… The Web site www.ianproject.org also serves as an online meeting place where parents and others can learn about the latest autism research and compare their responses to questions on such topics as treatment or school placement.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 7:41 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, News_2_Use, autism, research news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post