San Diego, September 24, 2009 - The insatiable race for the next big medical breakthrough did not stop when Watson and Crick discovered the double-helix. One amongst thousands of up-and-coming science superstars, 35-year old Alysson Muotri, PhD, vied for the coveted 2009 NIH Director’s Innovator Award – and won.

Dr. Muotri is a newly appointed assistant professor at UC San Diego’s Department of Pediatrics, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, and Rady Children’s Hospital. A Brazilian transplant, Dr. Muotri is best known for his breakthrough research published in Nature, 2005, on the mobilization of genetic retroelements during brain development. Now, with his ingenious proposal to apply stem cell research to understanding the cause of autism, Dr. Alysson Muotri is one of the elite – ranked among NIH’s Top 30 exceptionally creative new innovators in the world.

Established in 2007, the NIH Director's New Innovator Award is highly competitive and open to scientists internationally. The New Innovator Award is based on individual creativity, the innovativeness of the research approach, and the potential of the project to have a significant impact on an important biomedical or behavioral research problem. Listening to Dr. Muotri explain his award-winning proposal, he definitely has all three criteria.

A visionary, Dr. Muotri is taking stem cells to a whole new level - literally. Although stem cells have been commonly applied towards physiological breakthroughs, Dr. Muotri believes stem cell versatility may hold the key to unraveling complex mental and behavioral diseases. Using normal and autistic-gene-expressive stem cells, Dr. Muotri proposes to re-program them to be neurons in the embryonic stage. Then in different environments, he hopes to observe the autistic and normal neurons side by side as they diversify during brain development. His hope is to pinpoint the molecular and cellular mechanisms that occur, and what contributions to these occurrences that result in higher-level autism.

“I am very, very optimistic. I love what I do and it is great to receive this award so early in my career,” Muotri shares in his animated Brazilian accent. “I would be really happy if we can take this research from the petri dish to clinical trials to a new drug therapy. That’s how we will help kids suffering with autism.”

We hope so too, Dr. Muotri. The world is waiting.

MEDIA CONTACT:     Shivani Singh, Sr. Writer.  UC San Diego, Department of Pediatrics.  s1singh@ucsd.edu

SCIENTIFIC CONTACT: Dr. Alysson Muotri, Asst. Professor, UC San Diego, Department of Pediatrics. amuotri@ucsd.edu