Love, Tito’s

Removing CO₂ from the atmosphere by capturing it and permanently storing it or converting it into useful products is a well-known idea. However, the energy required to carry out CO₂ sequestration is currently impractical, even if renewables are used as the energy source. Advances in materials science have created amazing materials that can have properties that were once considered in the realm of science fiction. One such approach to capturing carbon uses a complex material called a covalent-organic framework (COF), which can be designed to extract CO₂ directly from the atmosphere or at the tail end of an industrial process, where it's highly concentrated, by using a negligible amount of energy compared to current methods. Tito’s is funding a project that uses COFs containing biomimetic-inspired structures that could one day make low-cost, low-energy carbon sequestration a reality.

Tito’s committed $895,928 over 3 years.

Water shortages are expected to increase in duration, severity, and number throughout the world. Extracting water from the atmosphere, even within incredibly low-humidity environments such as deserts, provides the opportunity to significantly reduce the impacts of droughts. Tito’s is supporting work investigating the use of novel materials called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with the hope that they can serve as an inexpensive, scalable, and long-lasting solution that only requires the energy from sunlight to function.

Tito’s committed $880,000 over 3 years.

This Love, Tito’s gift to the Texas A&M Foundation will support responsive agriculture teaching, research, service and professional development in the Texas A&M University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Responsive agriculture is a science-based, dynamic systems approach to agriculture that seeks to respond to the growing public health challenge of escalating chronic disease while considering environmental sustainability and economic viability. The professorship will advance the responsive agriculture research mission to understand relationships among animal and plant agricultural production and management, the environment, nutrient quality, nutrient content and human health.

Tito’s committed $500,000 as a one-time gift.

Cancer cells use nutrients and carry out metabolism differently than healthy cells. Several successful approaches to fighting cancer involve targeting metabolic pathways specific to the type of cancer. The work carried out in this project aims to understand the role that fasting might play in limiting nutrients that reach tumors as a way to slow disease progression and possibly enhance the effectiveness of other cancer therapies.

Tito’s committed $780,000 over 3 years.

The Asteroid Institute is working to protect our planet from asteroid impacts. When an asteroid hits the Earth, not only are people at potential risk but there can be long negative impacts on our atmosphere. To keep that from happening, the Asteroid Institute is informing other organizations on how to best protect our planet and Tito's is lending a hand. By helping fund The Asteroid Discovery Analysis and Mapping (ADAM) - a platform to create a dynamic four-dimensional map of our solar system - Tito's is supporting researchers, educators, and one-day folks like you, to find asteroids and deflect if needed, their journey to Earth.

Tito's committed $420,000 over two years. Tito's also committed to a $1 million gift-matching grant.

Folks may or may not know that our gut – specifically the gut microbiome – has a variety of beneficial effects on human health. However, our gut has been the target of quite a few disorders and diseases. This project, partially funded by Tito’s, is hoping to tackle just that by developing a system that can specifically pinpoint our gut and its components to better understand how certain bacteria affects human health; that work could drastically change the way we use antibiotics and probiotics.

Tito's committed $389,608 over two years.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, over half a million people a year need treatment for life-threatening snakebites. Current available products often lack effectiveness or are in short supply. Enter: The Global Snakebite Initiative, a group bringing world leaders together to design the best possible solution to fight the problem. With Tito’s support, the organization will develop and test new batches of antivenom treatment using cutting-edge technology, hoping to reach its goal to save thousands of lives every year.

Tito's committed $262,500 for one year.

Dr. Lauren Ancel Meyers and her team are researching how COVID-19 is transmitted, contained, and controlled around the world while working with the CDC and White House to create a plan of action against the pandemic. By using next-generation research, and support from Tito’s, their goal is to not only learn the costs and impact the pandemic has had on the economy, but on each individual person. Additionally, her team will specifically address our hometown of Austin and our home state of Texas to tackle COVID-19 challenges (with a goal to use those same tactics on other cities and states nationwide). The plan will support future pandemic preparedness and create long-term solutions for any future threats.

Tito's committed $2,486,142 over four years.

Like the rest of the country, our home of Central Texas faced a drastic shortage in ventilators used for COVID-19 patients at the height of the pandemic. Because of the high cost of making these ventilators, Dell Medical School’s Texas Health Catalyst stepped up to create a solution. Working with Ruben Rathnasingham, a professor from the Cockrell School of Engineering and fellow faculty physician, the team came out with a low-cost solution in the form of breathing bags. With support from Tito's, Texas Health Catalyst convened interdisciplinary partners to design, manufacture and submit a safe and effective product for FDA clearance in less than six months.

Tito's committed $399,864 for one year.

With support from Tito’s through a special grant, Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at Baylor College of Medicine leveraged a decade of experience developing a SARS vaccine to initiate a research & development collaborative program and rapidly create a COVID-19 vaccine technology. The COVID-19 vaccine technology has been successfully transferred to various global manufacturers where it is currently been produced in large scales and tested in clinical trials, highlighting how this research brings us one step closer to keeping us safe.

Tito's committed $1,000,000 for one year.

In addition to the work being done in the Dominican Republic, Tito’s is also helping fund a model that will help predict how much plastic is making its way into rivers with a goal to better use the Interceptor™ barge at serving the area. To get the model running, three rivers will be monitored for three years, tracking waste, rainfall, wind, run-off, land use, vegetation, and how the rivers run through the surrounding cities. The hope is to show ways in which the model can make a real difference in communities, encouraging new barges to be deployed and bringing The Ocean Cleanup one step closer to oceans free of plastic.

Tito's committed $705,627 over 3 years.

What are lysins? They are newly developed biological tools used to prevent and treat bacterial infections, especially against bacteria that are resistant to common antibiotics. Unfortunately, there are certain lysins that cannot be used against certain dangerous bacteria found specifically in hospitals. With the help of Tito’s funding, Rockefeller University scientists can dive deeper into understanding why these lysins become inactive and ideally, engineer them so that they may be used to their fullest potential.

Tito's committed $300,000 over two years.

Exosomes are tiny (we’re talking nanoscopic) particles that are constantly being made and released by cells. Only recently have scientists started uncovering their incredible potential. Exosomes are excellent for delivering therapeutic elements throughout the body, so researchers have been developing techniques to produce those tiny particles, pinpointing their specific qualities to best prescribe and successfully treat patients. Exosomes are still being explored, but with partial funding from Love, Tito’s, the group can hyper-focus on moving forward in its study, spotlighting: macular degeneration, immunotherapy, and fundamental science discovery.

Love, Tito's committed $3,090,000 over two years.

Tito’s is helping fund important vaccine development research through The University of Texas at Austin. That funding will go towards both cryo-EM and cryo-ET maintenance and equipment which are both used to study viruses and find the most effective ways to create vaccines and antibody therapies.

Tito's committed $2,700,000 over three years.