Lady Uddin, a peer from the House of Lords in London has urged British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to launch an Autism Task Force to consult widely and work in partnership with government departments, parents groups, community organisations, charities and the voluntary sector.

It's Autism in the Palace of Westminster on Wednesday 16th January 2008 with the focus on parents, carers and all people with autism and Asperger's Syndromwe in the United Kingdom. The call for a day for autism in parliament was made by Ivan Corea, head of the Autism Awareness Campaign UK.

Today’s issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics (AJHG), describes what might be a corner piece of the autism puzzle—the identification and subsequent validation of a gene linked to the development of autism by three separate groups of scientists.

Scientists have found a variation in a gene that may raise the risk of developing autism, especially when the variant is inherited from mothers rather than fathers. The research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health.

Loss of a small portion of chromosome 16, known as 16p11.2, is significantly associated with autism report researchers from the University of Chicago Medical Center, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in an article, published Dec. 21, 2007, online by the journal Human Molecular Genetics.

Autism cases continued to increase in California after the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal was eliminated from most childhood vaccines, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. This suggests that exposure to thimerosal is not a primary cause of autism.

Autism researchers at the University of Washington will take the initial step in attempting to prevent the developmental disorder when they launch an $11.3 million study this week.

Brain overgrowth in the latter part of an infant’s first year may contribute to the onset of autistic characteristics, according to research presented today at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) annual meeting.

By introducing a gene mutation in mice, investigators have created what they believe to be the first accurate model of autism not associated with a broader neuropsychiatric syndrome, according to research presented at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology annual meeting.

A missing brain protein may be one of the culprits behind autism and other brain disorders, researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory report in the Dec. 6 issue of Neuron.

Using a novel imaging technique to study autistic children, researchers have found increased gray matter in the brain areas that govern social processing and learning by observation.

The Autism Awareness Campaign UK was hailed as a finalist in the Asian Woman Awards for Excellence 2007, sponsored by the Bank of Ireland and hosted by the Asian Woman Magazine at an event at Banqueting House in London.