Children's Medical Research Institute

Jeans for Genes is the iconic fundraising campaign of Children’s Medical Research Institute. Jeans for Genes was established in 1994 by Children’s Medical Research Institute to fund revolutionary research that helps diagnose, understand, and find cures or treatments for conditions affecting kids, including genetic diseases, cancer, and epilepsy. 1 in 20 kids is born with a genetic disease or birth defect. You likely know and care about someone affected. Genetic diseases are one of the leading causes of death in kids under four and the main cause of ongoing hospitalisation.

You can help the work being done at Children's Medical Research Institute by signing up to raise funds or sell merchandise by volunteering.

We know you can make a difference. Here are a few of the things you have helped Jeans for Genes and Children’s Medical Research Institute to achieve since 1994:

• Established an ongoing 'vector’ engineering program that is designing new ways to cure many genetic diseases using gene therapy
• Discovered a cure for genetic liver disease, with clinical trials about to begin
• Partnered with The Children’s Hospital at Westmead on the first-ever gene therapy clinical trial in Australia, which corrected SCIDX1-deficiency (boy in the bubble disease)
• Found a single genetic defect can cause cleft lip and palate
• Discovered dozens of genes causing blindness and introduced genetic testing for these and other conditions, so families can be counselled
• Genetic identification of previously uncharacterised types of aplastic anaemia, which now helps children and teens survive bone marrow transplant to treat the disease
• Discovered a new class of drugs to treat the 1 in 3 epileptics not helped by current medication (now in pre-clinical trials)
• Launched a world-first project to revolutionise cancer diagnosis and personalise treatment planning