Hope Through Biomedical Research

     Clarence E. Schutt is a Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University where he is also Associated Faculty of the Molecular Biology Department, Director of the Graduate Programs in Molecular Biophysics and Chemistry, and a Member of the Program in Neuroscience. Prior to joining Princeton University's faculty in 1985, Dr. Schutt was a post-doctoral Fellow at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. He has received many honors and fellowships, is a member of several Advisory Boards and has been a member or ad hoc member of numerous National Science Foundation and NIH Scientific Review panels. His recent NIH research funding includes grants for Crystallography of Actin Related Proteins and the study of Pertussis Toxin Crystallography. Dr. Schutt received his undergraduate and Masters of Science degrees in Physics from The University of Michigan and Michigan State University, respectively, and his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University. He is the Executive Vice President & Secretary, on the Board of Trustees at the National Alliance for Autism Research.

      Since Dr. Schutt specializes in gene and pharmaceutical research. He often goes on sabbatical meeting with parent groups, talking about hopeful new advances in gene research. He covered Virus Structures, MRI Research. He talked about his children and the way one certain fellow plays smash the chess pieces. By the way, his son is beautiful. He initially became involved with a local parent group and began mentioning some "What if's?". As in...What if we knew what gene causes the behaviors?...Why isn't autism being worked on?...Why aren't there more scientists interested in it? He was on a A.I.D.S. Task Force at the National Institute of Health when he realized how there were no pilot studies and no grants for autism research. The answer to getting the research off the ground was structural and political. Hence began NAAR and its fellowships. The fellowships channel money into pilot studies. Pilot studies get approved after the process of creating a proposal, generating a report, comparing the report to a grant, scoring and then debating their worth. They get ranked in scoring order and thus begins the recruiting of researchers. The geneticists have tools now to find concrete clues. NAAR has an incredible Scientific Advisory Board comprised of the greatest doctors on the planet from all different aspects of the sciences, and a Honary Board featuring actors, musicians and authors. NAAR has raised some awesome amounts which can go directly to the scientific studies because their administrative costs are already covered by a donation from the Lurie family.

     Dr. Schutt then shared with us some slides of his son, and did the tell of how hiding food from his son was next to impossible. He voiced his concern for the future and how his son will manage when he's gone. He had a slide of the "Human Frontiers" poster which displays a side view of the brain with the tempural lobe highlighted. Quite cool indeed. This lead him into talking about the hippocampus and the differences in the number of neurons. Next he showed us a picture of the thinker statue, going to a patch of skin, breaking down to a single cell, to a membrane then to a protein. This is where Dr. Schutt has his specialty neurobiology, genetics, cell biology, and structural biology. Did you know that all cells have a common underlying structure? I was amazed. In actuality all biologists are working on autism. He then displayed a picture of Santiago Ramon Y Cajal (sp.), a dude who had been a pioneer in neuron science way back when, seems to be one to respect. Next were pictures of neurons, talking about chemistry of growth cones; neuroimaging and how the brain reacts differently after working the same puzzle for a while, hearing words, and sequencing projects. Brain protein; DNA - Amino Acids in a growth cone; Results of a study done on a population of deaf people; Four types of genes; Chromosome 15. The meeting could have gone on for much longer than we had time for. Thank you Dr. Schutt, you are fascinating.