Every year, thousand of people are diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses, and their best, or only, hope for a cure is a transplant from an unrelated bone marrow or blood stem cell donor. Since tissue type is inherited, a patient's best chance of finding a suitably matched donor lies with those of similar ethnic ancestry. Unfortunately, the worldwide donor pool is not representative of all ethnic and racial groups.
Age also plays a role in donation and young, healthy donors between the ages of 18-35 are called to donate 90% of the time. While donors over the age of 35 can still donate, they are asked to help offset the cost of processing their kit. As a company who offers matching gifts to 501(c)(3) organizations, a donation of $30 is suggested.
For a transplant to work, the donor's and recipient's tissue types must match. These are inherited, like hair and eye color, so genetic heritage is often a good predictor of matches. Yet many demographic groups have low representation in the registries, leaving some patients with little possibility of a livesaving transplant. Increasing the registry's diversity is an urgent need in order to save more lives.
75% of African American/Black and Multiracial blood cancer patients will never find a lifesaving donor.1
55% of Hispanic/Latino blood cancer patients will not survie due to the lack of a lifesaving donor in the registry. These communities have the highest rates of developing acute lymphocytic leukemia.2
The difficulty of finding matching marrow donors is due to the low number of diverse ethnic groups in the worldwide registry.3
Sarah Murry is the Deputy Editor of the Garage by HP and Innovation Magazine, HP's flagship brand journalism publications. She's worked at HP for five years on the Corporate Affairs Team and is based remoted in Orange County, California. Her background is in business and technology reports and she holds an MS in Journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Media, and Integrated Marketing Communications. 
Sarah joined the Gift of Life Marrow Registry and was identified as a match for patient in 2021. She was surprised to learn she was a match and excited to learn more. "He's a 66 year-old man with Hodgkin's lymphoma, he's my dad's age. I hope that if the transplant was successful, he gets many more years to enjoy the people and places he loves. When I'm feeling down, I imagine a hair-thin, silver thread connecting met o him, wherever he is. There is always this invisible web binding us together as members of the same human family. And the world i full of people who have been moved to help others and are forever connected in this way."