About this site
Our goal is to create a layperson-friendly repository of scientific information concerning the human germline's vulnerability to certain exposures, including pharmaceutical drugs, smoking, and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and address the many implications for EPA regulatory framework, FDA safety reviews, toxicology, and medical practice.
About the Escher Fund for Autism
Jill Escher is an autism research philanthropist though the Escher Fund for Autism she promotes and funds research on the genetic toxicology of autism and related neurodevelopmental pathologies. Her work has been lauded by the mutagenesis and epigenetics research communities, and she is the first non-scientist to be elected to the governing council of the venerable Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society, where she chairs the Germ Cell and Heritable Effects special interest group.
As president of Autism Society San Francisco Bay Area from 2013-2019, she grew a nearly defunct affiliate of the Autism Society of America into a regional powerhouse (she currently serves as Immediate Past President). As president of National Council on Severe Autism since its inception she is promoting awareness and solutions for individuals and families affected by severe forms of autism. She is also a housing provider to adults with developmental disabilities in the Bay Area through her family business, Claradon Properties, LLC. Most importantly she is the mother of two children with nonverbal forms of autism, a young man of 21 and a teen girl of 13.
The Escher Fund for Autism is a donor advised fund at Schwab Charitable. Together with sister fund the Escher Family Fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, it promotes science education and spearheads research projects to examine disruptive germline programming and gametic effects of drug, smoking, and chemical exposures, with an emphasis on risk for ensuing abnormal neurodevelopment in offspring. Past grantees of the Escher Fund for Autism, along with the Escher Family Fund, have included:
University of Bristol • Child Health and Development Survey • University of Copenhagen • UCSF • Harvard University • UCSD • Rockefeller University • Brown University • UCLA • Autism Speaks • Linkoping University • University of Chicago • Stanford University • Florida State University • North Carolina State University • Colorado State University • Columbia University • Keystone Symposia • Gordon Research Conferences • International Society for Autism Research • Environmental Mutagenesis & Genomics Society • Society of Toxicology • University of Syracuse • Washington State University • along with dozens of autism service organizations.
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As president of Autism Society San Francisco Bay Area from 2013-2019, she grew a nearly defunct affiliate of the Autism Society of America into a regional powerhouse (she currently serves as Immediate Past President). As president of National Council on Severe Autism since its inception she is promoting awareness and solutions for individuals and families affected by severe forms of autism. She is also a housing provider to adults with developmental disabilities in the Bay Area through her family business, Claradon Properties, LLC. Most importantly she is the mother of two children with nonverbal forms of autism, a young man of 21 and a teen girl of 13.
The Escher Fund for Autism is a donor advised fund at Schwab Charitable. Together with sister fund the Escher Family Fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, it promotes science education and spearheads research projects to examine disruptive germline programming and gametic effects of drug, smoking, and chemical exposures, with an emphasis on risk for ensuing abnormal neurodevelopment in offspring. Past grantees of the Escher Fund for Autism, along with the Escher Family Fund, have included:
University of Bristol • Child Health and Development Survey • University of Copenhagen • UCSF • Harvard University • UCSD • Rockefeller University • Brown University • UCLA • Autism Speaks • Linkoping University • University of Chicago • Stanford University • Florida State University • North Carolina State University • Colorado State University • Columbia University • Keystone Symposia • Gordon Research Conferences • International Society for Autism Research • Environmental Mutagenesis & Genomics Society • Society of Toxicology • University of Syracuse • Washington State University • along with dozens of autism service organizations.
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP Please click here.
Overview of activities:
Research
• Has sponsored epidemiological projects (in progress), laboratory science, and meetings.
• Has worked with leading advocacy groups such as Autism Speaks and Autism Science Foundation to further engage autism research in the subject of environmental epigenetics and induced germline perturbation in the etiology of neurodevelopmental disorders.
• Provides grant opportunities to researchers and advocates related to the subject of induced germline disruption.
Policy
• Has petitioned the FDA to consider fetal germline impacts of prenatal pharmaceutical exposures, including the morning sickness drug Diclegis and the synthetic hormone 17-OHPC (also marketed as Makena). See Makena petition here.
• Has asked the FDA Center for Tobacco Products to consider the risks of tobacco to germ cells, particularly the vulnerable early germ cells. Example here.
• Has asked leading medical organizations to consider vulnerability of fetal germline when evaluating risks and benefits of various medical practices, particularly the medicating of pregnant women with drugs such as hormones, antidepressants, and anti-nausea drugs.
• Has presented on germline disruption at the National Institutes of Health, Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, the Environmental Mutagenesis & Genomics Society, as well as at several other scientific and autism conferences. See links to selected presentations.
• Has pressed autism research institutions to move beyond “genetics in a vacuum,” and include examination the role of environmental factors, such as evolutionarily novel prenatal pharmaceuticals and tobacco, in the induction of de novo genomic alterations found broadly in autism.
Education
• Has launched the science repository website, GermlineExposures.org, to pull together information about germline-environment interaction, and educate the public and the broader scientific and regulatory communities about this emerging paradigm of critical-window vulnerability to chemical and drug exposures.
Contact: [email protected]
Research
• Has sponsored epidemiological projects (in progress), laboratory science, and meetings.
• Has worked with leading advocacy groups such as Autism Speaks and Autism Science Foundation to further engage autism research in the subject of environmental epigenetics and induced germline perturbation in the etiology of neurodevelopmental disorders.
• Provides grant opportunities to researchers and advocates related to the subject of induced germline disruption.
Policy
• Has petitioned the FDA to consider fetal germline impacts of prenatal pharmaceutical exposures, including the morning sickness drug Diclegis and the synthetic hormone 17-OHPC (also marketed as Makena). See Makena petition here.
• Has asked the FDA Center for Tobacco Products to consider the risks of tobacco to germ cells, particularly the vulnerable early germ cells. Example here.
• Has asked leading medical organizations to consider vulnerability of fetal germline when evaluating risks and benefits of various medical practices, particularly the medicating of pregnant women with drugs such as hormones, antidepressants, and anti-nausea drugs.
• Has presented on germline disruption at the National Institutes of Health, Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, the Environmental Mutagenesis & Genomics Society, as well as at several other scientific and autism conferences. See links to selected presentations.
• Has pressed autism research institutions to move beyond “genetics in a vacuum,” and include examination the role of environmental factors, such as evolutionarily novel prenatal pharmaceuticals and tobacco, in the induction of de novo genomic alterations found broadly in autism.
Education
• Has launched the science repository website, GermlineExposures.org, to pull together information about germline-environment interaction, and educate the public and the broader scientific and regulatory communities about this emerging paradigm of critical-window vulnerability to chemical and drug exposures.
Contact: [email protected]