A cure? I doubt it. At least, not in adults. Possibly in embryos.
Finding the genes involved is one thing. And in this case, we see that 100s are already involved, and they expect more. The more genes involved, the more complex the process, and the greater the difficulty of treatment.
Identifying genes is only the first step. You then have to figure out what the genes do. Then you have to figure out how they interact with each other. It’s a lot of work, and the more genes there are, the more complex the process is, the harder it is to figure out where you want to intervene. If you want to intervene at all.
I believe genetic variation is a useful thing. We make people normal at our risk. It’s like monoculture horticulture. You make everything into a very high performing plant, and you do real well until a diseases comes along that knocks out that plant, and you have nothing like it to stand in its place.
Autism is good for us as a species. It clearly produces people who are very good at some narrow areas of endeavor. Do we want to get rid of those talents? I don’t think so.
There is a similar endeavor going on to track down the genetic roots of my disorder—bipolar disorder. But here we have a problem again. If we get rid of bipolar, we may get rid of the talents that some folks with bipolar exhibit, and that will be bad for us all. It may b e a high risk, high reward scenario. You never know what crazy people will do. They might kill a lot of people. But they also might come up with the invention that saves the planet.
One fifth of bipolar folks die by their own hand. But some of them are brilliant and put out great works of art, or other types of work before they die. And some don’t die of suicide. Ask people with autism when they are grown up if they would have rather grown up normal, and a good portion will tell you to leave them alone. They like being the way they are.