Phil and Penny Knight commit $90M to boost research at Stanford Brain Resilience Initiative

Stanford University has announced a $90 million commitment from Phil and Penny Knight to expand the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at the university’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. The award builds on the Knights’ $75 million gift in 2022 and will fund research into healthy brain aging, dementia prevention, and neurodegenerative disease. The initiative will expand molecular mapping of brain aging, develop AI and cellular models to test potential interventions, and support grants for cross-disciplinary research. Since its launch, the program has backed 69 projects across 29 departments, generating 70 published research papers and more than $50 million in follow-on funding.