AWARENESS


A key objective of the Mission Massimo Foundation is to increase awareness of childhood leukodystrophies amongst the community and medical professionals. Although individually rare, collectively leukodystrophies are not altogether uncommon with some estimates suggesting overall population incidence as high as 1 in 3,000 live births.

Nearly half of children presenting with leukodystrophies remain undiagnosed and without an identified genetic cause. These are life-threatening conditions with extremely poor quality of life and a severe prognoses. Yet almost no one has heard of Leukodystrophies . This simply doesn’t make any sense and it is an issue the Mission Massimo Foundation is working hard to change.

 MISSION-MASSIMO-FA-OUTLINE MISSION MASSIMO

Scientia Est Potentia
| Knowledge Is Power

Awareness alters behaviour and mind-set and gradually breaks down barriers, removes stigmas and brings about real change. Mission Massimo started as a mission to diagnose, a young Melbourne boy, Massimo Damiani. It was a moon shot project which achieved the world’s first confirmed genetic diagnosis for an individual patient using a familial trio of genomes.