About The Brain Bank for Autism & Related Developmental Research
The Brain Bank for Autism & Related Developmental Research was set up in July 2008.
The UK Brain Bank is the first initiative outside the US to develop a similar programme to the Autism Tissue Program, which was set up there in 1998 and is now supported by Autism Speaks Inc. The UK charity Autistica provides the funding to enable the Brain Bank for Autism to develop its work.
The Brain Bank is based at Oxford University, where it forms part of the Thomas Willis Oxford Brain Collection.
The programme has a free-phone helpline on 0800 089 0707 which you can call if you prefer to gain information that way.
The donation of post-mortem brain tissue for this research programme is of fundamental importance to our understanding of the causes of autism and to help us develop more effective diagnostic measures and interventions. A separate brain bank for autism is necessary because we need to understand how, in autism, the brain develops over time and how the brain functions as a whole. However, our Brain Bank will promote close cooperation across all relevant brain banks in order to take the research forward. The scope of the research stemming from the brain bank is broad and inclusive. It includes research into the developmental conditions which are closely related to autism.
Our research focuses on;
- people within the autism spectrum or their family members
- people not affected by autism but who are affected by epilepsy
- people who have another condition related to autism
- individuals without autism or epilepsy.
Donations from people who do not have autism are very important since this allows comparisons to be made between the brains of affected and non-affected individuals. Some 20-30% of people with autism also have epilepsy, and it is vital to distinguish changes in the brain due to autism from those due to epilepsy. We also need to understand more about the ‘typical’ development of the brain. So it will be valuable if the donations needed to investigate autism, epilepsy and ‘normal’ development of the brain are made directly to this brain bank, rather than as part of general post-mortem organ donation.
Our Staff
- Margaret Esiri, Director of the Brain Bank for Autism & Related Developmental Research and Professor of Neuropathology at Oxford University, has responsibility for our Brain Bank there
- Dr Tom Berney is our Clinical Co-ordinator
- Catharine Joachim works with Margaret as a Research Neuropathologist at the University of Oxford and she is on-call Donation Co-ordinator for our programme
- Brenda Nally is our Outreach Co-ordinator
Advisory Group
Our Advisory group provides strategic input to the direction of our programme, advises on how to reach our organisational goals, helps to identify what we do not know but need to discover, and gives appropriate governance and consideration to key issues underlying the programme.
Its members are:
- Margaret Esiri - Chair, Professor of Neuropathology, University of Oxford
- Dr Tom Berney, Clinical Co-ordinator, Brain Bank for Autism & Related Developmental Research
- Ann le Couteur, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
- Andrew Dean, Consultant Neuropathologist, Department of Histopathology, University of Cambridge
- Catharine Joachim, Parent and Research Neuropathologist, University of Oxford
- Jenny Longmore, Director of Research at Autistica
- Brenda Nally, Outreach Co-ordinator, Brain Bank for Autism & Related Developmental Research
- Brian Neville, Professor of Childhood Epilepsy, Great Ormond St. Hospital, UCL Institute of Child Health and the National Centre for Young People with Epilepsy
- Payam Rezaie, Neuropathology Research Laboratory, Open University
- Simon Wallace, Director of Scientific Development Europe, Autism Speaks Inc
- Jane Westley, Parent and Trust and Foundation Fundraiser, Autistica