Kissick Family Foundation

The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD) is the leading organization focused exclusively on the spectrum of FTD disorders. Based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, AFTD’s staff and Board of Directors work with a national network of volunteers to advance earlier and more accurate diagnosis, accelerate the development of effective therapies, ensure that quality care and support are available to all in need, raise awareness, and advocate on behalf of all who face – or will face – this disease. AFTD works every day to bring forward a world with compassionate care, effective support, and a future free of FTD.

For billions of years, minerals on land have been washing into the ocean, creating slightly alkaline waters and drawing down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Carbon to Sea is the leading initiative to explore whether the acceleration of this natural process, known as Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement, can safely remove and store carbon dioxide. This research could be pivotal in preventing the worst potential outcomes of climate change.

The 10,000 Brains Project accelerates the use of computational approaches such as AI in the fight against FTD and other neurodegenerative disorders. The organization's first major initiative is the creation of a digital brain bank. Neuropathology is considered the gold standard for disease understanding, but most brain tissue is stored away on glass slides. This project will generate ultra-high resolution whole slide images from up to 10,000 patients' brain tissue samples. The dataset will be shared freely with the global research community, where it can be used to supercharge the pursuit of novel biomarkers and more personalized treatments.

Ocean Visions is a science-based conservation organization focused on the interlocking ocean and climate crises. Their work is based on the substantial body of science indicating that without confronting the planet's energy and carbon dioxide imbalances, no other conservation measures will be able to address the cascade of impacts to the ocean and planet. Focusing on neglected areas like prolonging Arctic Sea Ice and marine carbon dioxide removal, they catalyze action by providing detailed insights to institutions around the world to accelerate the development of potential solutions in the fight against climate change.

Incorporating research and interviews conducted by Jake Broder as a Hellman Visiting Artist at UCSF’s Memory and Aging Center, UnRavelled is a play about love, art, science and who we are on the most profound level. The play explores the fascinating connection between the work of Canadian scientist and painter Dr. Anne Adams (1940–2007) and French composer Maurice Ravel (1875–1937), both of whom had primary progressive aphasia, a form of FTD.

Arête Glacier Initiative is a nonprofit focused on forecasting and managing the risk of sea-level rise, particularly from vulnerable glaciers like Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. By advancing research on sea-level rise modeling, monitoring, and observational technology, we aim to improve predictions to inform mitigation and adaptation strategies. We also assess the safety, feasibility, and effectiveness of potential interventions to stabilize ice sheets and actively manage rates of sea-level rise, enabling science-based societal decisions to address the impacts of climate change and protect at-risk communities.

The Genetic Frontotemporal Dementia Initiative (GENFI) is a group of research centres across Europe and Canada with expertise in FTD, coordinated by Professor Jonathan Rohrer at University College London. The aim of the study is to understand more about genetic FTD to gain insights into the disease at its earliest stages, as well as markers that allow the progression of the disease to be tracked.

Note: The Kissick Family Foundation's grant to GENFI is administered by its strategic partner, the Milken Institute.

Coral reefs are among the most important—and most imperiled—ecosystems on the planet. Revive & Restore’s Advanced Coral Toolkit develops and applies cutting-edge biotechnologies to advance coral reef conservation and management. From cryopreserving coral fragments to transferring resilience through stem cell transplants, identifying stress-response genes, and developing probiotic treatments for coral disease, Advanced Coral Toolkit projects pioneer transformative methods to boost coral diversity and resilience. These tools create actionable coral conservation solutions for the present while laying the groundwork for future intervention options.

Principal investigator: Alexander Ehrenberg, PhD

Alex Ehrenberg (PhD) is a translational neuroscientist at UCSF’s Memory and Aging Center and the Doudna Lab at UC Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute. Neurodegenerative diseases like frontotemporal dementia predictably affect certain brain regions and not others. Dr. Ehrenberg uses tissue collected from patients at autopsy, medical genetics, and laboratory models to understand why neurons are vulnerable or resistant to degeneration. Learning more about mechanisms of selective neuronal vulnerability will help establish new therapeutic targets, especially for patients with inherited disease variants.

The Nature Conservancy is one of most effective and wide-reaching environmental organizations in the world. As part of their efforts to protect the ocean and tackle climate change, they are developing and demonstrating innovative tools and technologies to reduce costs and dramatically scale coral production for restoration.

Cascade is a philanthropically-backed nonprofit accelerating progress in interventions that harness Earthʼs natural systems—from soils, to oceans, to glaciers—to help stabilize our climate. Since its founding, Cascade has established itself as the leading hub of field-acceleration work in enhanced rock weathering at a critical inflection-point moment for the ecosystem.

A science-driven nonprofit, Spark Climate Solutions accelerates progress in emerging, high-impact climate fields. Spark’s current programs focus on unsolved super climate pollutant emissions. Super pollutants, including methane and nitrous oxide, cause more than half of current warming. Spark’s current programs work to grow the fields working on livestock enteric methane mitigation, methane removal, transformational agricultural nitrogen management, and warming-induced emissions science and monitoring. Spark takes a deeply collaborative field-building approach, doing a mixture of direct work in the field, regranting, and launching new initiatives in order to support the growth of talent, institutional capacity, and collective knowledge to set up each field for long-term success.

The Foundation is creating a better future for the world’s coral reefs by helping them adapt to the impacts of climate change. As the largest coral reef charity on the planet, it raises funds, invests in innovative ideas and designs real-world, scalable conservation programs that are delivering breakthroughs in marine and terrestrial restoration. Walking in step with First Nations Peoples and front-line communities in Australia and the Pacific, it’s fast-tracking and deploying solutions around the world.