The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) has launched a landmark autism research project in the U.S. This long-term online study is called SPARK, which stands for `Simons Foundation Powering Autism Research for Knowledge.` The mission of SPARK is simple: we want to speed up research and advance our understanding of autism to help improve lives. The entire autism community is invited to participate.

The UC Davis MIND Institute invites you to register with SPARK, a large, online research partnership that seeks to improve the lives of people with autism through research. You can register online at www.SPARKforAutism.org/ucd.  The UC Davis MIND Institute is one of a network of clinical sites—autism centers and research institutions—that SPARK has partnered with across the country.

The goal of SPARK is to accelerate autism research in order to gain a better understanding of causes and treatments for autism. By building a community of tens of thousands of individuals with autism and their biological family members who provide behavioral and genetic data, SPARK will be the largest autism research study to date.

By joining SPARK, you will be making invaluable contributions to advancing the understanding of autism.

To register for SPARK:

·         Go to www.sparkforautism.org/ucd

·         If you have already received an email invitation, register using the email address that this invitation email was sent to

·         Be sure to select the UC Davis MIND Institute as your referral source

Registration takes about 20-30 minutes, and we`d love to have you on board. As part of your participation in SPARK, we ask that you register and complete a few questionnaires online, and provide a saliva sample using a saliva collection kit that will be shipped directly to your home. Find out more about what`s involved on our SPARK FAQ page:  https://sparkforautism.org/portal/page/faqs/

Together, we can improve lives by helping to accelerate research. SPARK sincerely appreciates your time, effort and participation in this landmark research initiative, and we look forward to learning more together!