Our Story
Angelina Cask Neurological Research Foundation (‘ACNRF’) was founded as a Not for Profit Organisation by Giovi and Charles Moschoudis on 18 August 2020, in Sydney Australia. Less than two years after establishing ACNRF in Australia, Giovi Moschoudis founded ACNRF as an approved public charity in California on 20 June 2022. Giovi and Charles have a young daughter Angelina, who was diagnosed with CASK during 2019.
Giovi was 34 weeks pregnant, when an initial diagnosis of Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum (ACC) was made during a routine ultrasound. In simple terms, Angelina is missing the middle area of her brain which connects the two cerebral hemispheres and is the control centre for higher neural functions including our motor, sensory and cognitive functions.
This impacts Angelina’s ability to walk, talk, eat and control her emotional needs. The probable outcome provided by most of the members of the medical team, was that Angelina was unlikely to have any quality of life and she would be unable to walk, communicate and would be severely delayed. Giovi and Charles were given the option to terminate the pregnancy but chose to give Angelina a fighting chance.
Following extensive genetic testing, it was found that Angelina’s condition arises from a calcium/calmodulin-dependent serine protein kinase (CASK) gene mutation that has only recently been discovered and is a rare condition.
