CANBERRANS are being urged to throw their support behind Jeans for Genes Day on Friday (August 6).

With one in 20 kids facing a birth defect or genetic disease, the nationwide fundraising event supports the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) to discover new treatments and cures for children with genetic diseases, cancer, and epilepsy.

CMRI Canberra committee member Carolyn Forster says the charity will host it’s first ever gala dinner at 6.30pm on Jeans for Genes Day at the Hellenic Club, Woden, and wants Canberrans to dig deep.

“We were unable to host many of our major fundraising events last year due to covid so we are optimistic the event will go ahead in Canberra and be a big success,” says Ms Forster.

This fundraiser enables the work being done in the Westmead labs at CMRI, renowned for its research contributions to the “genomic revolution’’, which couldn’t happen without community support.

Research leader, Assoc Prof Leszek Lisowski and his team are developing gene therapy tools that can help patients with eye diseases, liver conditions and cystic fibrosis.

“Gene therapy has the power to fill the gap that has formed between our ability to diagnose and cure a disease and therefore bring real benefits to patients,” Assoc Prof Lisowski says.

“This is an exciting and a very rewarding time to be a researcher in the area of gene therapy.”

Tickets to the gala dinner at trybooking