“The surprising results, disclosed in an interview this week by Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant that makes the drug, grew out of three decades of painstaking genetic research, leaps in the understanding of how the brain works, the advocacy of families who refused to give up, and a chance meeting between two scientists who mistakenly showed up at the same conference. ‘Just three years ago, I would have said that mental retardation is a disability needing rehab, not a disorder needing medication,’ said Dr. Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, who was told of the Novartis trial results. ‘Any positive results from clinical trials will be amazingly hopeful.’”