Clinicians involved in treating heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, are all able to utilize a number of scientifically validated biomarkers to better understand the origin and nature of their patients’ diseases, and to initiate tailored interventions. One of the greatest current challenges to understanding and treating autism and other psychiatric conditions is the relative absence of such biomarkers. The current panel presents four research programs involving differing approaches to the search for brain-based biomarkers for autism spectrum disorders. Bartley and colleagues present data utilizing arterial spin labelling to establish voxel-based reliability of activity across 10 weeks in a brief biomarker assessment; Stefanidou and colleagues present evidence that event-related potentials biomarkers for core social processing atypicalities may differ across development and/or intellectual ability levels in autism; Hudac and colleagues describe evidence for a significant role of genetic variability in defining an electroencephalography-based biomarker for social processing within individuals diagnosed with autism; finally, Roberts and colleagues describe a robust, multi-modal set of biomarkers for variability in language-related functioning in individuals with autism. Together, these presentations describe both challenges and successes in the field’s application of cutting edge neuroimaging procedures and approaches to the identification of meaningful, clinically-relevant biomarkers for individuals with autism.