It’s NKH Awareness Day today. I’ve been posting all week on facebook + instagram about NKH. Facts and trivia (as much as rare and terminal metabolic disorders can have trivia).
Here’s my ask: Instead of your usual flat white, please swap your coffee today for a donation. Please donate. Please donate. £3. £5. £15.
If donations aren’t your thing, please buy an Eva book (all royalties go to Joseph’s Goal). Please change your amazon smile charity of choice to Joseph’s Goal. Please change your profile picture on facebook to the NKH frame. Please share this post.
Today is the day, where once a year we as an NKH community make a big push. Our lives are hard – you know this. Not every family has the means or resources or support to fundraise, and so most families ask once a year, on this day.
Here’s what I can tell you. Your funds are making a difference. In the last year, there has:
- Been the creation of zebra fish, mouse + worm NKH models. This is HUGE. Researchers can use these models to better understand how NKH works, at a much faster rate.
- There has been progress in understanding how NKH works (in that it’s not *just* high glycine that causes issues, but also all the metabolic pathways that need molecules from the broken glycine system).
- There has been progress in narrowing down which currently approved FDA drugs might work as a chaperone for NKH (this is also HUGE).
- There has been signs that gene replacement therapy can be successful in mice (this is also SO HUGE, this is a CURE)
- There has been research into replicating NKH into an algorithm for diagnostic use, which is HUGE and AMAZING and has the potential to help so many families.
There is more detail and more information that I can’t share, as it’s all unpublished and I’m being intentionally vague, but I want to share that progress is being made in NKH research. It’s progress that’s being funded by you.
For every £5 you’ve donated to Margot’s Marathon or Katy’s Run, or for every wine you’ve bought at a wine tasting, for every BV person who is doing Tough Mudder – you GUYS! You are paying for real research, real research that is underfunded, real research that has the potential to improve children’s lives dramatically.
So please donate today. Please go out and tell someone about NKH. Tell them about Mikaere. Organise a fundraiser in your office, a bake off, a poker match, a fun run. The stakes are small, and every single donation helps. Every single donation is funding research that will change lives.
Happy NKH Awareness Day. Thank you for being in our corner. We love you.
