UNSW Science Society

Why we're doing Jeans for Genes for Our Own Idea

Our team cares about the 1 in 20 Aussie kids who face a birth defect or genetic disease. That's one in every classroom, maybe someone you know or love. Every day, many of these kids wake up to pills, injections, hospital visits (or worse). They don't get the chance to run around and just be kids. If they can endure that, and keep smiling, then the least we can do is fight alongside them. That's why we're doing Jeans for Genes and raising money for Children's Medical Research Institute. We want to give these kids better treatments and maybe even a cure.

We’ve signed up to do our own thing, so we can raise awareness and start the conversation—we need to do all we can to help save more kids’ lives. Can you help by sharing this message with the people you know and asking them to donate too? We (and millions of Aussie kids) thank you for it!

Here's just one example of how, together, we can change things:

When Kalarny was born, he couldn’t hold his head up. He couldn’t move. He was fighting just to breathe. He was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), and his parents were told he wouldn’t survive to his first birthday. Thanks to research he survived, but he needs regular spinal injections and a wheelchair to get around. If he’d been born just a few years later, he could have received gene therapy. Infants treated with just one injection of gene therapy seem to be cured. It’s early days, but signs indicate that they will go on to lead normal, healthy lives. It’s so effective, SMA has been added to newborn screening and the gene therapy treatment is covered by PBS. An incurable disease just a few years ago, is now curable. Amazing. That’s what we want for more kids and more of the 6000 genetic diseases out there.

There’s lots of work to do, but there is also lots of hope.

Join us. Share this message. Donate. Thank You!