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Grants awarded through this RFA were intended to advance our understanding of the genetic basis of autism, and in particular, to begin to assess genetic variants conferring risk in non-coding regions and in coding regions of the genome that may be less accessible to whole-exome sequencing. The program partnered with the New York Genome Center to sequence whole-genomes from 500 Simons Simplex Collection quartet families (2,000 genomes at 30X sequence coverage). Investigators were encouraged to develop innovative and efficient ways to analyze whole-genome sequencing data to identify de novo and inherited mutations, CNVs not identified by WES, non-coding variants associated with autism risk, and mitochondrial DNA variants. The program particularly sought multidisciplinary approaches and collaborations between investigators with complementary expertise in analyzing large genomic datasets.