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Siblings Lachlan and Hayley Webb from Queensland might never sleep again all because of a rare hereditary medical condition which they have inherited from their family. Fatal Familial Insomnia is an extremely rare brain disease which is incurable and has no treatment. The disorder causes irregular clumps of protein to damage nerve cells and make holes in thalamus, the part of the brain that regulates sleep. FFI currently affects less than one in 10 million people worldwide.

The disorder has already killed the sibling's mother and grandmother. The condition will eventually kill Hayley Webb, 30, and her brother Lachlan, 28 as it prevents them from achieving deep sleep and leads to rapid mental and physical deterioration. Their bodies could not rejuvenate and the patient feels like he or she has been awake for the past six months. The siblings first became aware of the genetic illness when they were teenagers and their grandma became ill.

"In my early teens I remember becoming aware of it, aware we had this family curse," Hayley said, reported The Sun. "My grandma started getting sick and dying. Her eyesight went, she had signs of dementia, she was hallucinating and couldn't talk. Eventually, she was diagnosed with FFI, that was the first time the family even knew that FFI existed."

Hayley, who is a Channel Nine news reporter, said her mum started to show the first signs of FFI in 2011.

"I remember leaving for work to my new post on the Sunshine Coast and mum saying 'have a great day, I'm so proud of you' and then later that week coming back and she was calling me Jillian and she thought I was the housekeeper. It was incredibly aggressive," she said, reported The Independent.

The disorder caused the sibling's mother to have full-blown hallucinations, leading to her death after six months. The Webb siblings have teamed up with US couple Eric Minikel and Sonia Vallabah in their pioneering study at the University of California to find a cure to the extremely rare disorder.

"It could happen tomorrow but until we're in that danger zone we probably have a good ten years up our sleeve and I am praying that there is a cure between now and then," Hayley said. "I don't want to sit here while the sands through the hour glass pass waiting for it to trigger and for me to cark it. I want information, I want answers and I want a bloody cure."