Our annual Garrod Day Coffee Morning is approaching again! However, this year we are taking a slightly different approach with Garrod Day as we are going virtual!
Yes, on 25th November we are hosting a virtual Garrod Day Coffee Morning.
What is Garrod Day?
Garrod Day is an important day in the history of Alkaptonuria (AKU). It is on the 25th November, the birthday of the late Sir Archibald Garrod, who was an English physician who first described AKU. We celebrate this by hosting coffee mornings all over the world, raising money for the AKU Society.
Who is Sir Archibald Garrod?
Sir Archibald Garrod was the fourth son of another renowned physician and was educated at Marlborough College and Christ Church at the University of Oxford. He lacked interest in classics, so he performed poorly at Marlborough College. However, he graduated with a first-class honours degree in natural science in 1878. In 1885 he obtained his Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Arts from Oxford and became a member of the Royal College of Physicians.
Garrod is best known for his scientific study of inborn errors of metabolism. He had a childhood interest with colour variations, and he took notice of how the colour of urine changed. Due to this, Garrod began to study Alkaptonuria. He collected family history information as well as urine from his patients and in 1902, published a paper called The Incidence of Alkaptonuria: a Study in Chemical Individuality. This was the first published account of a case of recessive inheritance in humans. He received honorary degrees from the universities of Aberdeen, Dublin, Glasgow, Malta, and Padua in recognition of pioneering a new field of medicine.
Virtual Garrod Day
This year is even more special to celebrate the AKU Society’s successes as we have had the recent positive opinion on nitisinone from the EMA (read about it in our blog here)
We are hosting our very own virtual Garrod Day Coffee Morning at 12 pm GMT on 25th November. To join this event, you need to buy a £5.00 ticket from Eventbrite and all the funds raised will go towards the virtual work that the AKU Society does to support patients.
We will have talks from our CEO, Nick and AKU expert, Professor Ranganath – have questions at the ready!
Don’t forget your coffee and cake!
Can’t come?
We are encouraging all our supporters to host their own virtual Garrod Day too! We have a document on how you can host the perfect online Garrod Day – have a read and head here to download fundraising resources for it too!
If you need fundraising resources posted to you or advice then please email our Fundraising Manager, Juliet, juliet@akusociety.org
We can’t wait to see everyone’s coffee mornings around the world – save the date!