“It’s groundbreaking.” The causes of autism remain mysterious, and LinusBio is entering an ongoing and heated debate over what roles a tangle of environmental and genetic factors may play.“There is certainly much more work to be done before concluding that this test is a valid measure of autism spectrum disorder risk,” Dr. Scott Myers, a neurodevelopmental pediatrician at the Geisinger Autism & Developmental Medicine Institute, wrote in an email.How the test works The LinusBio test analyzes the history of the metabolism, telling the story of what substances or toxins the child has been exposed to over time, according to Manish Arora, the company’s co-founder and CEO, who is also a professor of environmental medicine and public health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the academic arm of the Mount Sinai Health System.“It’s almost like having a security camera where you can go back and get a look at four pictures a day,” Baccarelli said.“We have theories about what we might do,” Estes said, ”but it hasn’t been studied extensively.” Next steps, more data The Food and Drug Administration gave LinusBio’s test a “breakthrough” designation, which is intended to speed up the regulatory approval process for new technology when there aren’t alternatives on the market."