An amplifier, a family credo and a crisis led to an $80 million gift for UCI MIND

Dr. Joshua Grill, executive director at UCI MIND – the organization at UC Irvine that’s technically known as the Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders and is widely regarded as one of the nation’s most important hubs for research into Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia – is an expert at running scientific clinical trials.

And while such trials can be wildly technical and arcane, most boil down to a fairly simple question of cause and effect. If you introduce...