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Bone Marrow Donor Registration Drive

The Black Graduate Student Association at UCLA (BGSA) is hosting a Bone Marrow Donor Registration drive with the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP).

Thursday, February 28, 2008
11:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Viewpoint Conference Rooms
Ackerman Student Union
(across from the barber shop)
Los Angeles, CA United States

Request from the Black Graduate Student Association at UCLA (BGSA):

On any given day, more than 6,000 men, women and children are searching the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) Registry for a life-saving donor like you. These patients have leukemia, lymphoma and other life-threatening diseases that can be treated by a bone marrow or cord blood transplant. For many of these patients, a transplant may be the best and only hope of a cure.

For a successful transplant, the tissue type of a bone marrow donor or a cord blood unit needs to match the patient's as closely as possible. Special testing determines whether a patient and bone marrow donor or cord blood unit are a good match. The closer the match, the better for the patient.

Race and ethnicity matter in tissue matches. Because tissue types are inherited, patients are more likely to match someone from their own race or ethnicity. Adding more donors and cord blood units from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds to the NMDP Registry increases the likelihood that all patients will find the match they need.

Although BGSA is encouraging anyone/everyone to register, if you are from one of the following communities, you are urgently needed as a marrow donor or cord blood donor:

• Black and African American
• American Indian and Alaska Native
• Asian
• Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander
• Hispanic and Latino
• Multiple race

All donors need to do is:

Complete a registration form with contact information, health history questions and a signed agreement to join the NMDP Registry.

To help you complete the form, bring along:

• Personal identification (such as a driver's license or passport)
• Contact information for two family members or friends who would know how to reach you in the future if your address changes.
• Give a swab of cheek cells so your tissue type can be tested.

• Also, please review the requirements below to confirm that you are eligible to join.

To join the Registry, all you need is to:

• Be between the ages of 18 and 60.
• Be willing to help any patient in need.

Meet health requirements. These conditions would prevent you from joining the Registry:

• Most heart diseases
• Most cancers
• Chronic lung diseases
• Diabetes requiring insulin or diabetes-related health issues (such as kidney, heart, or eye disease)
• Autoimmune disorders such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis, HIV, or at risk for HIV
• Hepatitis, or at risk for hepatitis
• Conditions affecting blood clotting or bleeding
• Have had an organ or marrow transplant
• Significant obesity

Thats it! It takes 5-10 minutes and your tissue type is then added to the NMDP Registry.  Doctors search the Registry when they need to find a marrow donor for their patients.

Anyone can and everyone is encouraged to donate.  BGSA welcomes donors of every background, but are especially focusing on people of color because of the vast need.

For questions, more info, contact:

Black Graduate Student Association (BGSA)
310.206.4416

Siduri Haslerig
Doctoral Student
Higher Education and Organizational Change Division
Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, UCLA
Choices Graduate Student Researcher
shaslerig@gmail.com

 

 

For more information please contact

Siduri Haslerig Tel: 310.206.4416
shaslerig@gmail.com

Sponsor(s): Black Graduate Student Association at UCLA, National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP). Information about non-ASC events is posted for informational purposes and does not necessarily reflect opinions of or endorsements by African Studies personnel.