Autism is a clinical diagnosis defined by phenotypic and behavioral criteria and can be associated with over a thousand genes.

“autism is a clinical diagnosis in the same way that you know familial hypercholesterolemia is a familial is a phenotypic diagnosis it's a diagnosis in the case of FH where LDL cholesterol has to be above 190 milligrams per deciliter off treatment and it's incredibly heterogeneous in terms of the genes that are responsible to my last count I think there were more than 3,500 genes that could produce that phenotype of high LDL cholesterol so autism is the same right the diagnosis is clinical it's a phenotypic defined disease and maybe up to a thousand genes involved in in that or a thousand different ways to get there or more”