Accreditation Statement 

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is accredited by The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

AMA Credit Designation Statement 

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia designates this educational activity for a maximum of 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s) TM. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

APA Accreditation Statement 

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

Dr. Schutt received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, where he majored in Physics, and his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University, where he developed methods used to determine the first high resolution structures of icosahedrral viruses. Funded by a Helen Hay Whitney Fellowship, a Muscular Dystrophy Postdoctoral Fellowship, and an Established Investigatorship of the American Heart Association, Schutt pursued structural studies under Sir Aaron Klug and Hugh Huxley at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. In 1985 he joined the faculty of Princeton University as an Associate Professor in the Chemistry Department, with an affiliated appointment in the Department of Molecular Biology. Schutt has taught courses on Pharmaceutical Policy in the Woodrow Wilson School, as well as Honors Freshman Chemistry, Advanced Structural Biology, and Freshmen Seminars in 'Process and 'Architectonics'. His research is focused on determining biological structures of cellular machines involved in movement and force production. Schutt has honorary degrees from Stockholm University and the University of San Marcos (Lima, Peru). Schutt is a Founding Trustee and served as Chairman of the Board of the National Alliance for Autism Research, NAAR (Princeton, NJ), which has now merged with Autism Speaks, the largest publicly funded organization dedicated to funding research and advocacy for autism. Presently, he serves as Director and Chief Scientific Officer of the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation, one of the largest private funders of autism research and treatment.
 

Many genes associated with autism can be related to specific functional pathways in the nervous system. The powerful tools of structural biology (x-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance, electron microscopy) can be used to visualize these pathways at near atomic resolution, the realm of chemistry and physics. It is here that targetable mechanisms offer up new ideas for deeper understanding and the development of therapeutics.  Dr. Schutt will provide examples of how the discoveries of structural biology are changing how we think about the causes of autism and how they might influence the search for treatments.

This lecture is intended for faculty, employees and students at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania. Anyone interested in learning about autism is also welcome to attend.

 Upon completion of this lecture, participants will be able to:

1. Discuss how structural biology can be effective in studying autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).
2. Explain how the discoveries of structural biology are changing how we think about the causes of ASDs.
3. Analyze how these discoveries might influence the search for treatments of ASDs.