Our overall strategy reflects our belief that neither ‘top-down’ clinical and translational studies, nor ‘bottom-up’ model system analysis can impact on ASD alone. Rather, we need to integrate proven technologies around (for example) animal models and PET, together with new approaches (e.g. functional MRI (fMRI), induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and multi-omics). To achieve this we plan 5 major deliverables (figure, below) which strike a pragmatic balance between advances that are more certain in the next 3-5 years (enhanced and enriched animal models, new imaging techniques, advanced analyses) and lines of research that may carry more risk but will be transformative over a longer timeframe (genetics, transcriptomics and proteomics for patient stratification and response prediction).