For many people, their first exposure to the very real medical condition of autism came via the mostly fictional 1988 movie “Rain Man” and Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal of an autistic savant.
Autism was a mystery then; it is still baffling today. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says autism affects one in 68 children and is much more common among boys than girls – as public service commercials point out, a child has a far greater chance of being diagnosed with autism than of someday becoming a professional athlete or entertainer – but the cause isn’t known. Some studies have suggested a link to causes of birth defects, but the search continues, as it has for decades, for both a cause and a cure.
(That one-in-68 figure, by the way, represents an increase in the prevalence of cases of about 60% in the last decade. Researchers say autism isn’t occurring with greater frequency; the methods for diagnosing it are more efficient.)
In the digital age, people most often turn to Internet search engines when they want to find elusive answers to perplexing questions – so it is appropriate that the Internet’s most-used search engine, Google (GOOG, Financial) (GOOGL, Financial), is joining forces with Autism Speaksand Canadian geneticist Stephen Scherer in the search for a cure for autism.
The $50 million project, which will create a Cloud-based database that researchers throughout the world can use to search, sort and share genetic information on autistic patients, has the potential to “not only help doctors understand and treat autism but change the way illnesses are tackled,” reports CNBC.
It has long been an article of faith among scientists that genes hold the key to understanding conditions like autism, Down’s syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease. If the autism project pays off, it could have tremendous implications for medical science in the 21st century.
“We have raised money for the National Institutes of Health for the better part of 10 years, and they have already spent about $2 billion of it, and we still don't have any breakdown of autism," Bob Wright, the co-founder of Autism Speaks, told CNBC. "They're sort of nibbling outside the palace, and they can't get in.”
With a net income of nearly $13 billion, Google might have the financial heft to “get in.”
Wright told CNBC he hopes Google’s participation will make it possible to accomplish within two years what it might otherwise take 25 years to do.
Not a Premium Member of GuruFocus? Try it free for 7 days here!
