About Us
Scientific Integration, Research & Clinical Expertise
The Autism Innovation Coalition Team
The Autism Innovation Coalition (AIC) brings together research scientists, clinical advisors, and contributors with lived clinical experience to support the synthesis and integration of autism research into a systems-biology framework. AIC does not function as a single-laboratory research entity. Rather, it operates as an interdisciplinary integration body that identifies, organizes, and explains how findings across biological domains relate to one another in living systems.
Many AIC contributors are actively engaged in primary, peer-reviewed research and clinical investigation. AIC’s distinct role is to integrate this ongoing work across disciplines; clarifying how genetic vulnerability, redox and mitochondrial metabolism, immune signaling, prenatal and postnatal immune responses, cell signaling, and neurodevelopmental timing interact dynamically over time.
This work is grounded in contemporary systems biology and explicitly incorporates the principles of pleiotropy, where single genes or pathways influence multiple systems, and stochastic biological variation, in which small differences in timing or intensity of stressors can produce divergent outcomes in vulnerable systems. These principles help explain the marked heterogeneity observed in autism without relying on deterministic or single-factor explanations.
A Living Reference Model
AIC functions as a living reference resource. Content is updated as new peer-reviewed research emerges and clinical insights are identified. We also aim to acknowledge where there are areas of scientific disagreement, inconsistent findings, gaps, or uncertainty. Through this structure, AIC supports informed discussion across research, clinical, and policy settings while closely maintaining scientific integrity and biological precision.
Our Team
Research Scientists & Domain Experts
(Primary research generation and mechanistic discovery)
Robert K. Naviaux, MD, PhD. – Genetics, Mitochondria, Metabolism, and Cell Danger Response
University of California, San Diego School of Medicine
rnaviaux@health.ucsd.edu
Dr. Naviaux is a Professor of Genetics in the departments of Medicine, Pediatrics, and Pathology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He is the founder and codirector of the Mitochondrial and Metabolic Disease Center (MMDC) at UCSD, and the co-founder and former President of the Mitochondrial Medicine Society (MMS). He is a founding associate editor of the journal Mitochondrion. Dr. Naviaux is the discoverer of the first POLG1 mutations that cause Alpers syndrome—the oldest Mendelian form of mitochondrial disease. He directed the first FDA-approved clinical trial to study the safety and efficacy of the antipurinergic drug suramin as a new treatment for the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Dr. Naviaux’s lab characterized the metabolic features of the cell danger response (CDR) and showed how these interfere with the process of salugenesis. Information about Naviaux Lab research can be found on the web at: https://naviauxlab.ucsd.edu.
Judy Van de Water, PhD. – Immunology, Maternal Immune Activation, Inflammation, Autoantibodies
University of California, Davis School of Medicine
javandewater@ucdavis.edu
Dr. Van de Water has a broad background in clinical immunology and immunopathology, with specific training and expertise in the gestational immune environment. Over the past 24 years, she expanded her research to include the immunobiological aspects associated with autism, which includes the maternal gestational immune environment, and how perturbation during gestation can impact the developing brain. Dr. Van de Water’s laboratory has worked to successfully understand the maternal cellular immune response and the humoral immune response during pregnancy and how dysregulation in these systems relates to neurobehavioral disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. Her group discovered the role of maternal autoantibodies in the development of autism spectrum disorder that has led to the definition of a new sub-phenotype of ASD arising through this mechanism. In addition, she is a Co-Investigator on the UC Davis Conte Center studying neuroimmune mechanisms of psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, and is PI of Project 1. In addition, Dr. Van de Water is currently the Director of the NICHD-funded MIND Institute Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, for which she heads the Molecular and Biological Analysis Core and is PI of the project embedded in the IDDRC.
Paul Ashwood, PhD – Immunology, Cytokines, Microglia, Maternal Immune Activation
Professor of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, Davis
Core Investigator, UC Davis MIND Institute
Paul Ashwood, PhD, is a leading neuroimmunology researcher whose work has shaped scientific understanding of immune dysregulation in autism and related neurodevelopmental conditions. He is a Professor of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California, Davis, and a core investigator at the UC Davis MIND Institute.
Dr. Ashwood’s research centers on immune signaling, cytokine imbalance, and innate immune activation during critical periods of brain development. He has published extensively on altered immune profiles in autism, including pro-inflammatory and regulatory cytokine shifts, microglial activation, maternal immune factors, and immune–brain interactions.
His work has been instrumental in establishing biologically distinct immune-based subtypes, including links between developmental regression, neuroinflammation, and sustained immune activation. His work has been instrumental in defining biologically distinct immune-based subtypes using rigorous, mechanism-driven translational approaches.
Clinical Advisors & Translational Contributors
(Active patient care and clinical interpretation of biology)
John Gaitanis, MD – Neurology
Brown Medical School
Dr. Gaitanis, a graduate of Brown Medical School, completed his neurology training at Children’s Hospital Boston. He went on to finish an epilepsy fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center before returning to Children’s Hospital Boston to join their epilepsy staff. In 2004, Dr. Gaitanis returned to Brown Medical School and Hasbro Children’s Hospital where he served as the director of pediatric epilepsy. He aided in the development of ketogenic diet and epilepsy surgery programs at Brown, providing comprehensive epilepsy care for children in Rhode Island. Between 2014 to 2022, he served as the Director of Child Neurology at Tufts Medical Center/Floating Hospital for Children. In 2022, he returned to Brown where he served as the director of the child neurology division through 2025. Apart from his clinical duties, Dr. Gaitanis is the former President of the Greater Boston Epilepsy Society and has been a board of the Epilepsy Foundation of New England and the Medical Academy of Pediatrics and Special Needs. Dr. Gaitanis’ research focuses on improving communication in patients with autism spectrum disorders and identifying biomarkers for autism and epilepsy.
Clinical & Lived-Experience Contributors
(Contextual insight into real-world systems of care)
Sylvia Fogel, MD – Psychiatry
Clinical Instructor, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Fogel is a psychiatrist and advocate for individuals with autism (ASD) and neuroimmune disorders. Her clinical work emphasizes integrating systems biology and functional medicine principles into the treatment and support of individuals with PANS and ASD, particularly regressive ASD and more severe forms of the disorder. Dr. Fogel is also the parent of a child with profound autism and PANS. She understands, first-hand, the complex, life-altering challenges that families with ASD and PANS face on a day-to-day basis. Since 2019, Dr. Fogel has been a tireless advocate for access to special education services at the legislative level in Massachusetts. Dr. Fogel has been involved in medical education for over two decades, formerly at Columbia University and currently at the Harvard McLean Mass General Psychiatry Residency Program.
Policy Integration, Editorial Oversight & Synthesis
Laura Cellini, CEO, Elucidate ASD
Role: AIC Lead Coordinator and Website Editor
(Parent of a young adult with autism)
Laura Cellini serves as the Lead Coordinator and Website Editor for the Autism Innovation Coalition. Her role is to provide the centralized synthesis, integration, and editorial coordination that aligns research science, clinical expertise, and lived experience within a unified systems-biology framework. She works to ensure that peer-reviewed research, clinical insight, and systems-level biology are represented accurately, coherently, and consistently across AIC content.
Laura is a veteran public policy advocate and the CEO of a newly founded patent-pending, clinical decision support platform, Elucidate ASD, that will integrate large-scale survey research, clinical data, and artificial intelligence through the lens of systems biology to identify precise biological based subtypes in autism. Laura brings 25 years of successful legislative experience, combined with the lived perspective of guiding her son from severe regressive autism to magna cum laude college graduate. She has co-authored and championed numerous laws on autism, immunodeficiency, and neuroimmune conditions, including advocating for Illinois’ first statewide autism program for young children, an autism insurance mandate, the creation of the Illinois Autism Task Force, and the first law in the country that acknowledges the various underlying and co-occurring medical conditions in autism. She also led development of the nation’s first law aligning PANS/PANDAS treatment coverage with clinical standards.