S7 • E11 Jun 8, 2025
GEM Appeal was founded in 1994 by Karen Johnson after she was approached by Consultant Paediatrician Dr Ed Wraith with a request for money to be raised to hopefully extend the Willink Unit at the Royal Manchester Childrens Hospital and to fund research into the disorder that her two sons Simon and Mike were dying from. At that time there was no treatment and no hope for children diagnosed with these rare genetic disorders and inborn errors of metabolism and very little research was being done into these diseases.
