Advancing Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research at KU

Improving and enriching lives through research

With support from the KU Research Rising initiative, KU Life Span Institute scientists are building on more than 60 years of intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) research. This work has improved and enriched the lives of thousands of individuals and their families. The Life Span Institute Research Rising project will enhance KU’s ability to maintain this longstanding global strength and elevate KU’s ability to address major questions in the field, such as the complex genetic, biological, and environmental factors that cause IDDs and how best to develop interventions to support individuals with IDD so that they can live their best lives.

The team leading this effort is:

• John Colombo, director of the KU Life Span Institute
• Matt Mosconi, director of the Kansas Center for Autism Research and Training
• Karrie Shogren, Director of the KU Center on Developmental Disabilities

The project also includes research colleagues Olivia Veatch, Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, KU School of Medicine, and Peter Smith, Senior Associate Dean for Research, School of Medicine.

Research Rising is a five-year initiative investing more than $12 million in four interdisciplinary projects that will address critical challenges facing humanity. The projects, which align with one or more of KU’s five strategic research areas, will allow emerging areas of research at KU to blossom through recruitment of key faculty expertise. 

Toward a precision approach

The last 20 years of research have revealed that while many children experience significant gains by participating in educational and support strategies developed through research, not all supports work for all children. In other words, we need to understand each individual with an IDD in order to best support each individual. Our ability to identify the roots of this variability rests with expertise in analyses of individuals at the genomic and molecular level, and the understanding of the scope of this variability lies with the use of data science in analyzing the complex profiles seen within the many conditions of IDD.

This project is crafted around the goal of cultivating the multidisciplinary research environment needed to develop these more personalized approaches for supporting neurodiverse populations. 

In the video below, Life Span Institute director John Colombo explains more about the aims of this project.