NASHVILLE, Tenn. ñ Patricia Rodier, professor of obstetrics and
gynecology at they University of Rochester, will speak on how autism
develops. The talk will be held at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for
Research on Human Development on Monday, June 6, at 4 p.m.
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder with both genetic and
environmental risk factors that affects the lives of thousands of
children and adults and their families.
Since 1994, Rodier has researched how injuries to the developing
brain occur and how they are later expressed in brain structure and
function as playing a role in the development of autism. Rodier has
proposed that one possible explanation for why the same disorder can
arise from different causes is that the timing of the injury to the
embryo may be the same in many cases.
Rodier is the director of Rochester‘s National Institute of Health
(NIH) Collaborative Program of Excellence in Autism and Rochester‘s NIH
STAART (Studies to Advance Autism Research and Treatment) Center. She
won the Warkany Award for research in birth defects from the Teratology
Society in 2003, and the Bock Prize in Developmental Biology and
Genetics from the DuPont Children‘s Hospital in 2004.
Rodier‘s lecture will take place at the Vanderbilt Kennedy
Center/MRL Building Room 241. The lecture is free and open to the
public.
The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center is a national center for research on
development and developmental disabilities. For more information,
contact Stephanie Comer at 615- 322-8240.
Media contacts: Stephanie Comer, (615) 322-8240
Stephanie.comer@vanderbilt.edu
Melanie Catania, (615) 322-NEWS
Melanie.catania@vanderbilt.edu