When a picture is worth a thousand words! For those who have been involved in the life of Caring Matters Now from the very beginning, you will understand the significance this photograph is to the life of our charity.
Jodi (middle) was born with CMN in 1980. For the first 15 years Jodi and her parents didn’t know what the big brown hairy birthmarks were that covered 80% of her body. Jodi had over 30 operations to try and remove the birthmarks as it was thought that the birthmarks could cause melanoma in the skin.
In 1996 at the age of 15 Jodi met Dr David Atherton (left) at Great Ormond Street Hospital and for the first time was given a name for her condition – Congenital Melanocytic Naevus (CMN).
Dr Atherton asked if Jodi and her family would be willing to support the handful of other patients, he was in contact with across the UK who had CMN. This was the birth of Caring Matters Now.
In 1999 Dr Atherton recruited Professor Veronica Kinsler (right) to run the newly formed CMN clinic at GOSH and to take over the CMN research that Dr Atherton had begun.
Professor Kinsler started to look at CMN through her lens as a genetic scientist, working closely with Jodi and all the families registered with Caring Matters Now. Soon after, Professor Kinser found the genes that develop CMN, and is now working with her research team at the Francis Crick Institute to find a cure for CMN. In recognition of her pioneering research and the development of the CMN clinic at GOSH, Professor Kinsler received her professorship in 2021.
Over the past 25 years, Caring Matters Now has donated over one million pounds to the CMN research, supported over 800 families affected by CMN across the UK and world-wide, and raised global awareness of CMN through the hugely successful photographic series ‘how do you C Me Now?’ which attracted national and international attention.
As a charity we would not be where we are today without these 3 inspirational individuals who’ve worked tirelessly together to care for children and adults affected by CMN.
