2026 Christmas Appeal
The bravest thing you can do is look. The kindest thing you can do is give.
Ann was fit and healthy, but she had no idea an aortic aneurysm was silently threatening her life. The bravest thing she ever did was look. It saved her, and it may save her children.
Your urgent gift this Christmas before 24 December will fund the research that catches this hidden killer before it strikes.
With your support, more people like Ann can have a second chance.
Will you help us achieve our $149,000 target?
$149,000
Ann's Story
Ann had always been a fitness enthusiast, healthy and strong, or so she believed. Then, a large aneurysm was found, by chance, on her aortic root. An aortic aneurysm gives almost no warning. The aorta is the body’s largest artery, and when a weakened section tears open, it is frequently fatal even when treated immediately. Most people never know they carry the risk until it is too late.
An aortic aneurysm does not care how fit you are.
Almost a year after her diagnosis, Ann did something that changed everything: she looked deeper. She researched her condition and found a clear recommendation that first-degree relatives should be screened. She had assumed her aneurysm was simply bad luck. Instead, she realised she had a responsibility to ask her family to be tested.
Her brother was found to have virtually the same aneurysm, in the same place. He had surgery soon after. Ann’s decision to look had almost certainly saved his life.
This is exactly why research matters. This is exactly why your gift matters.
What Ann uncovered was sobering: her “bad luck” was, in fact, a genetic condition woven into her family’s DNA. And the hardest discovery was still to come.
Ann’s children have recently been screened. Sadly, two of her three children have aortic disease. In her own words:
"If there’s a time to donate to The Baird Institute, now is it, please, so that my children, their children, and all future generations have better outcomes."
Imagine learning that the condition that nearly took your life has been passed, unknowingly, to your children. That is the weight Ann carries. And it is why she is asking you, this Christmas, to help us look deeper.
The Baird Institute is Australia’s leading centre for research and clinical excellence in cardiothoracic surgery and heart disease. It was here, after she became her own advocate, that Ann found our team and our cardiothoracic surgeon, Professor Paul Bannon, who performed her successful surgery.
But surgery treats the patient in front of us.
Research is how we save the families we have not met yet...
And that is where you come in. That is exactly why research matters. That is exactly why your gift matters.
Right now, thanks to brave patients like Ann, we hold precious aortic aneurysm tissue that allows us to see this disease in extraordinary detail – from the genes and proteins that drive it to the energy systems that keep cells alive. Each is a different way of looking, and each discovery offers a different piece of the puzzle. Together, they are bringing us closer to something that has never existed before: therapies that can stop aneurysms from growing, rupturing, and claiming lives.
Using these invaluable tissue samples and advanced laboratory techniques, our researchers are uncovering the cellular signals behind the genetic and environmental causes of aortic aneurysms. This work is laying the foundation for life-saving treatments that could prevent aneurysms before they become deadly.
Without immediate funding, this work will stall. Years of momentum will be lost, and families counting on the next breakthrough will be left waiting.
The bravest thing you can do is look. The kindest thing you can do is give.
Ann looked, and it saved her brother. She looked again, and it revealed the danger to her children in time to act. With 99% of our funding coming from generous donors like you, your gift is what keeps us looking on behalf of every family who does not yet know what we might find.
Please do not wait.
Every day without funding is a day this research stands still, while aortic disease keeps moving.
Your generous Christmas gift before 24 December will help ensure more families get the future Ann is fighting for.
People like Ann are counting on you. Please give as much as you can today.
With heartfelt thanks for all you make possible,
Professor Paul Bannon
PhD, MB BS, FRACS Chair, The Baird Institute
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