Marcus Autism Center and Emory University School of Medicine have been awarded up to $17.25 million to join an international network developing treatments for autism and related neurodevelopmental disorders, positioning Atlanta as a hub for research into some of the most severe and least understood forms of the condition. The funding marks the maximum award amount available in this first round of grants.
The Atlanta institutions were selected as one of 12 initial sites chosen from the United States and Europe, according to WSB-TV. The award comes from Aligning Research to Impact Autism, or ARIA, which is creating what it calls the Innovative Medicine and Precision Approaches to Clinical Trials Network, or IMPACT Network. Marcus Autism Center joins peer institutions including UCLA, Seattle Children's, Cincinnati Children's, and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in the network, according to UCLA Health.
Targeting a Population Long Overlooked in Research
The network will focus initially on genetic discovery for profound autism and related genetically based neurodevelopmental disorders, per the station's report. The term profound autism was formally introduced in December 2021 by a Lancet Commission to describe autistic individuals who require 24/7 care, have severe cognitive impairment with an IQ below 50, or are nonverbal or minimally verbal — a group estimated to comprise 26.7% of 8-year-olds on the autism spectrum, according to the Child Mind Institute.
That population has grown more visible in national data. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its national autism prevalence estimate in April 2025 to 1 in 31, or 3.2%, among 8-year-old children, up from 1 in 36 reported in 2023. The agency's same April 2025 dataset found that 39.6% of 8-year-olds identified with autism spectrum disorder had a co-occurring intellectual disability, according to Pathfinders for Autism.
Gene Therapy and Brain Stimulation on the Table
Marcus Autism Center researchers will study children with profound autism and genetically based neurodevelopmental disorders, while the broader network will explore experimental gene therapy and direct brain stimulation approaches. The first IMPACT Network study will examine how profound autism and related neurodevelopmental conditions progress over time and affect daily life, with the goal of guiding future clinical trials across the network's U.S. and international sites.
Dr. Ami Klin, principal investigator and director of Marcus Autism Center, described the effort as among the most advanced clinical trials networks in autism research, per the same account. ARIA established the IMPACT Network to address what it describes as a decade-long bottleneck in autism research, where rapid progress in gene discovery failed to yield parallel therapeutic advances due to fragmented clinical trial infrastructure and unstandardized data collection, according to Aligning Research to Impact Autism.
Local Partners and a Deepening Research Footprint
Marcus Autism Center's work under the new grant involves local collaborations with Children's Behavioral and Mental Health and Neurosciences Research Programs, Emory's Department of Human Genetics, and the Tri-Institutional Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science, according to Rough Draft Atlanta. The center also received $21.9 million from the Marcus Foundation earlier in 2026, bringing its total funding for the year to nearly $40 million, per WSB-TV's reporting. That earlier Marcus Foundation funding supported a study of behavior, brain, and genomic biomarkers in children across the autism spectrum and associated genetic neurodevelopmental conditions.
The center's diagnostic track record extends beyond this new award, as the Georgia Research Alliance notes. In June 2022, the FDA authorized EarliPoint Evaluation, an eye-tracking diagnostic device for use in toddlers beginning at 16 months.
Roots in a Home Depot Co-Founder's Philanthropy
Marcus Autism Center was established in 1991 by Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus after he learned about the care challenges faced by an employee with an autistic child, and the center later merged into Children's Healthcare of Atlanta as a nonprofit subsidiary in 2008, according to Marcus Autism Center. Bernie Marcus, whose foundation contributed more than $2.7 billion in overall philanthropic giving, died in November 2024 at age 95, per the Philanthropy Roundtable.
The center now operates as part of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, a system that a June 2026 Georgia Tech report found generates about $6 billion in annual economic output for the state while treating more than 450,000 unique pediatric patients per year, as Hoodline previously reported. The new federal-style grant adds another layer to that footprint, positioning Atlanta alongside a dozen international sites working to finally translate years of genetic discovery into treatments for some of autism's most severely affected patients.
