Paul Ashwood

Paul Ashwood is an autism researcher who is currently an assistant professor of immunology at the MIND Institute at the University of California Davis. His lab conducts research regarding the potential role of immune system disorders in autism, as well as other neurodevelopmental disorders such as Fragile X syndrome, Tourette’s syndrome, schizophrenia and mood disorders.

Born in the United Kingdom,

Ashwood originally conducted research on the gastrointestinal pathology observed in some autistic children. His research has concluded that differences exist in immune responses between autistic and neurotypical children. With regard to one such study, presented at the International Meeting for Autism Research in 2005, Ashwood said, "We would like to take these findings and explore whether, for example, the cytokine differences are specific to certain subsets of patients with autism, such as those with early onset, or those who exhibit signs of autism later during development," and in chapter 8 of a book published by fr, he and his colleague Milo Careaga conclude that "...findings of immune dysfunction in ASD...indicate that there is a strong immune component to this disorder..." Similarly, Ashwood co-authored chapter 10 of a textbook on immune system disorders; in this chapter he states, based on a number of peer-reviewed papers, that "these findings point to a pivotal role for immune-dysregulation in the pathogenesis of ASD." Another of his studies, presented at the International Congress on Autoimmunity, also in 2005, came to a similar conclusion. However, Ashwood noted that "a lot of these reports are conflicting, and there is no consensus so far." Additionally, Ashwood's lab recently published a study concluding that the mothers of children with autism were more than 21 times as likely to have the specific MAR [maternal autoantibody-related] antibodies in their systems that reacted with fetal brain proteins, or antigens, than were the mothers of children who did not have autism. Another of Ashwood's studies, published in 2011, was, along with two other MIND Institute studies, named among the top 10 autism research achievements of that year by Autism Speaks, and yet another study provided evidence that levels of cellular adhesion molecules in the blood are lower in patients with autism than in controls. Ashwood was formerly one of Andrew Wakefield's colleagues at Royal Free Hospital, and has received over ₤8,000 as a result of his serving as a paid witness in MMR litigation. While at Royal Free, Ashwood was also a co-author on a number of papers Wakefield published after his fraudulent 1998 Lancet paper.