Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Saturday, February 15th. Today on Forbes, Sergey Brin's

$2 billion quest to tackle Parkinson's bipolar disorder and now autism. On March 26, 2024,

Nicole Shanahan stepped on to the national stage as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s

vice presidential running mate. On that day, and in many later public comments,

Shanahan shared details of her young daughter's autism diagnosis, tying it to a vaccination

she received as an infant. There is no evidence that vaccines cause autism, but Shanahan,

describing herself as a, quote,

autism mom, broadcast that debunked theory throughout her five-month VP campaign.

On a podcast a day after accepting the nomination, Shanahan said, quote, my daughter has lifted

the veil for me. If we're talking about my support for Bobby Kennedy, that is what has brought me to this movement, financially, spiritually, and perhaps other ways.

Far from the campaign trail, her ex-husband and daughter's father, Google co-founder,

Sergei Bryn, has never spoken publicly about their child or Shanahan's beliefs. Yet in early 2022, members of his

philanthropy team began to explore ways to help. After more than two years of planning and

nearly $50 million in funding for autism research to date, Brin is launching a new initiative

called Aligning Research to Impact Autism, or ARIA, that will fund research into what

causes autism, as well as therapies for it. The long-term budget for the project hasn't been

finalized, but will greatly exceed what's been spent so far, according to a person familiar with

Bryn's philanthropy strategy. Its first program, called The Impact Network, aims to link a

group of autism care centers and affiliated researchers who will collaborate and coordinate on clinical

trials. Applications to join the network are set to open in the next few months.

Bryn's focus on autism is his latest effort to direct the bulk of his substantive philanthropic

giving to conditions that affect the central nervous system, or CNS.

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