It may look slightly different this year, but Jeans for Genes Day’s mission remains the same: to make the incurable – curable – for Aussie kids living with genetic conditions.

Jeans for Genes Day has now been moved to the first Thursday in August – this year falling on Thursday August 7. The iconic fundraising day supports the labs at Children’s Medical Research Institute so scientists can do work today to change lives tomorrow.

One life that has been profoundly altered is Alessia’s. The six-year-old was born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Just a few short years ago children diagnosed with severe forms of this devastating disease did not live to see their second birthday. Gene therapy has changed that!

“Gene therapy has been completely life-saving and life-changing,’’ Mum Adriana said. “To think that within the past 10 years, if you were given the diagnosis of severe SMA for your child, you knew that it was a death sentence. You were told to go home and to love your child because they will not reach past their second birthday…… if you were lucky. And now, Alessia is six – this was unfathomable!’’

However, there is still so much work to be done – for children and families facing any of one of more than 6,000 serious genetic diseases, including cancer.

Ollie is in remission from cancer, but his dad Nathan said that is not every family’s experience.

“There are families we’ve met along the way who don’t get that outcome,’’ Nathan said. “They receive the information that the treatment hasn’t been effective and that they have to go home, knowing that their child will fall asleep, and pass away.’’

Jeans for Genes is one of Australia’s oldest charity days and this year it will move to the first Thursday in August – after finding that many of our capital city streets and offices are quiet on a Friday.

It may be on a different day but the challenge of finding treatments and cures for 1 in 20 Aussie kids with conditions like cancer, cystic fibrosis and other devastating genetic diseases remains the same.

Jeans for Genes Day allows labs to stay open, science to continue and lives to be saved.

Sign up now to fundraise your own way. You can Bake it Blue with a cake stall, do walking, running, skipping, or any form of exercise you like – or simply wear jeans just like millions of Australians have done for more than 30 years.