China plans autism cell bank

China is planning to set up a cell bank for the pathological study of autism, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday, World Autism Awareness Day.

Experts from the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Science under the Chinese Academy of Sciences said that they have started to collect samples of cells in accordance with laws, Xinhua said.

Qiu Zilong, a research fellow on neuroscience at the institute, said cells from autistic children would be collected, cultured and differentiated in their research. The cells come from medical institutions, not from children's families.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon said on Wednesday that World Autism Awareness Day is "a call to action," urging all concerned to help build "a more inclusive world," Xinhua reported.

China's first database to connect autism experts with families of children with autism is also on the way, a Shanghai hospital announced Wednesday.

The Blue Ocean Club, a project started by the Children's Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai, will invite medical professionals on autism to hold seminars regularly for families of autistic children, briefing them about the latest research developments on autism and giving them treatment advice, according to Wang Yi, vice-director at the hospital.

The project includes a WeChat account and a website, through which the families of autistic children, volunteers and doctors will join to share resources, in order to help autistic children and their families, Wang said, adding it will be China's first systematic, regulated and professional database for autism.

Currently there is a lack of professionals to treat the disorder and no large sample surveys to obtain statistics like its prevalence and case rate, Wang said.

Last year Wang's hospital, together with another 11 medical institutions in eight cities, built up a research and monitoring system for autism, in order to get a number for the prevalence of the disorder and study the cause and prevention, according to the club's website.

Autism is a development disorder present in early childhood. With the developing monitoring system, the number of children in China who are diagnosed with autism has increased.