Raun Melmed, M.D.

Key Research Interests

Raun D. Melmed, MD, co-founder and medical director of the Southwest Autism Research and Resource Center, is a developmental and behavioral pediatrician and is director of the Melmed Center in Scottsdale, Arizona. He is an Adjunct Senior Researcher at the Translational Genomics Institute in Phoenix and on faculty at Arizona State University. Dr. Melmed earned his medical degree at the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa, and completed a fellowship at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston, where he was an Instructor at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Melmed is a member of the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and the Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He is board certified in Pediatrics as well as in Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.

The author or coauthor of more than 70 publications, he has set up nationally recognized physician training programs for the early identification of infants and toddlers with developmental and behavioral concerns and authored a program geared toward the early screening for autism spectrum disorders. He is the co-author of Succeeding with Difficult Children and Autism: Early Intervention. Dr. Melmed is currently a principal investigator of novel psychopharmacological agents in the treatment of autism, Fragile X and ADHD and collaborates on studies of tools used in the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders.

Education

• MBChB University of Cape Town Medical School

• Pediatric Residency, Brookdale Hospital, Brooklyn, NY

• Fellowship, Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Boston, MA

• Board Certification: Pediatrics, Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics

Selected Publications

• Schroder CM, Malow, BA, Maras A, Melmed RD, Findling RL, Breddy J, Nir T, Shahmoon S, Zisapel N, Gringras P, “Pediatric Prolonged-Release Melatonin for Sleep in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Impact on Child Behavior and Caregiver’s Quality of Life” Journal Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2019.
• Herscu, P, Handen, BL, Arnold, LE, Snape MF, Bregman J, Ginsberg L, Hendren R, Baber R, Kolevzon R, Melmed RD, Mintz M, Minshew N, Sikich L, Attalla A, MD, King B, Owley T, Childress A, Chugani H, Frazier J, Cartwright C, Murphy T, Autism Speaks Clinical Trials Network, The SOFIA Study: Negative Multi-Center Study of Low Dose Fluoxetine on Repetitive Behaviors in Children and Adolescents with Autistic Disorder; Journal Autism Developmental Disorders, 2019.
• Bird, LM, Ochoa-Lubinoff, C, Wen-Hann Tan, WH, Heimer, G, Melmed, RD, Rakhit, A, Visootsak, J, During, Burdine M, RD, Kolevzon A, Thibert RL, The STARS Phase 2 Study: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Gaboxadol in Angelman Syndrome, Neurology Accepted 2020.
• Melmed RD, Lutz J, Improving Objective Measures of Attention in Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA) into Normative Ranges with AKL-T01, a Digital Treatment for Attention in Pediatric ADHD, Journal of American Academy Adolescent and Child Psychiatry, Volume 59, October 1, 2020.
• Taraman S, Melmed RD, Performance of a Novel Software Based Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnostic Device for Use in a Primary Care Setting, Poster Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2021  
• Melmed RD Autism Parent Handbook, Staring with the End Goal in Mind, Future Horizons, Texas, 2021.
• Megerian, J; Dey S, Melmed RD, Coury D, Lerner M, Nicholls C, Sohl K, Rouhbakhsh R, Narasimhan A, Romain J, Golla S, Shareef S, Ostrovsky A, Shannon J, Kraft C, Liu-Mayo S, Abbas H, Gal-Szabo E, Wall D, Taraman S, Evaluation of an Artificial Intelligence-Based Medical Device for Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder Submitted for publication, 2021.