School Notes: School of Medicine
November/December 2026

Building brain models to advance autism research

Yale School of Medicine has been awarded a grant of nearly $25 million by the Aligning Research to Impact Autism (ARIA) initiative. The award, part of ARIA’s Human Developmental Neurobiology Research Hub, supports the building of foundational maps and models of the developing human brain to clarify how and when autism diverges from typical development. 

Co-led by Nenad Sestan, Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Neuroscience and professor of comparative medicine, of genetics, and of psychiatry at YSM, and Paola Arlotta, the Golub Family Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard, this research is designed to meet the scientific challenge at its origin point—early brain development—by building the foundational models needed to detect, interpret, and address developmental differences. “By bringing together experts across disciplines and institutions, we aim to better understand how brain development unfolds and how autism emerges,” says Sestan. “Ultimately, we hope this work accelerates discovery, improves early detection, and informs more effective interventions.”

Yale center to serve as national hub on dementia research

Hua Xu, Robert T. McCluskey Professor and vice chair for research and development in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science, and his collaborators have been awarded a five-year, $9,483,323 grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health. This grant will support an AI-Powered Coordinating Center (AICC) that will serve as the national hub for the NIA’s Artificial Intelligence and Technology Collaboratory (AITC) Program on Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease/Related Dementias Research, coordinating activities across the five AITC centers to promote integration, collaboration, and efficient program management. 

The AICC will use AI-enabled infrastructure to streamline administration, facilitate information and data sharing, strengthen commercialization and regulatory pathways, and support centralized award management, review, and progress tracking. Through sustained engagement with older adults, caregivers, and community partners, the AICC will promote the development and adoption of accessible, responsive technologies while catalyzing translation of AITC discoveries into real-world applications.