Stem cell registry seeks to close ethnic gap

By Angela Lee

“When you give blood, you give your life away.”

That’s what Ryan Chiu’s grandmother believed up until a year-and-a-half ago.

Everything changed when Ryan’s family learned he had AML Leukemia and needed a bone marrow transplant.

Ryan found a match in the national bone marrow registry and underwent a transplant three months after he was diagnosed.

The Cranbrook, BC, native is now cancer-free, and is extremely thankful to have found a match. Last July, he wed his long-time girlfriend, Flora, and is now looking forward to starting a career in the telecommunications industry.

By his own admission, Ryan was extremely lucky.

Today, 511 patients across Canada – 114 from BC - are waiting for a stem cell match from someone outside their family.

If they are Caucasian, they have a 75 per cent chance of finding a good match.

If they are South Asian, Filipino, Black, or Chinese like Ryan, the odds are stacked against them – sitting somewhere between 10 and 30 per cent.

OneMatch

This is where the OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network comes in.

Formerly known as the Unrelated Bone Marrow Donor Registry, OneMatch has launched a new campaign aimed at recruiting a younger, more ethnically diverse group of committed volunteer donors.

As it stands, less than one in six potential donors on OneMatch is non-Caucasian. And the challenge becomes even greater in large urban centres like Vancouver and Toronto where there are many mixed-race children with more complicated stem cell markers.

For their National Stem Cell and Bone Marrow Awareness Week, OneMatch partnered with Vancouver’s HipHop Canada and Toronto’s Flow 93.5FM for cross-country concerts aimed at young people.

"It's not fair, in any sense of the word, that one Canadian should have more of an opportunity to beat a bout of cancer than another, based simply on ethnicity," says HipHop Canada founder Jesse Plunkett, 24. "We can change these odds by making OneMatch more reflective of the ethnically diverse society we live in."

“Today, it’s easier than ever to become a donor,” says OneMatch spokesperson Angela Reed. Volunteers simply register online at www.onematch.caand are sent a buccal swab kit. They just swab the four corners of inside their mouths and mail the samples back. “It’s all very CSI,” Reed adds.

 “My grandmother’s changed her attitude [towards donating] by 180 degrees,” says Ryan Chiu, whose father has become a regular blood donor.

“Don’t do it for yourself or your family. Do it for your community. Help save a life in Canada.”

For more info, visit www.onematch.caor www.hiphopcanada.com.