There are 195 more potential donors in the national Be The Match bone marrow registry as a result of a campus drive Feb. 29.
This year, the student group WU Marrow Registry ramped up efforts by partnering with the Community Service Office to conduct drives at four Danforth Campus locations. The locations were sponsored by Alpha Phi Omega, EnCouncil, Law School Public Service Advisory Board and Relay For Life.
“It was terrific,” says Stephanie Kurtzman, director of the Community Service Office and associate director of the Gephardt Institute for Public Service. “We had such great participation from every part of our community — undergraduates and graduate students, faculty and staff.”
Adding more diverse members increases the likelihood that all patients will find a life-saving match. This is one of the reasons WUSTL organizers decided to launch an even larger, more visible drive this year.
Ten thousand people with leukemia, lymphoma, sickle cell and other life-threatening diseases need a bone marrow transplant to survive. Seventy percent of those waiting patients do not have a donor in their family and depend on the Be The Match registry to find an unrelated bone marrow donor or umbilical cord blood.
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