Patients with blood cancers may require a stem cell transplant as part of their treatment. However, 80% of patients do not have a suitable match in their family, and must find an unrelated donor. Canada’s stem cell donor-database is used to match potential donors to patients. Individuals age 17-35 can register to join this database at stem cell drives, where they swab their cheeks to provide a tis
sue sample for a DNA test. Finding a match for transplant is difficult: currently, over 1000 Canadians cannot find a match. Since 2011, we have recruited 5525 Canadians as stem cell donors (~1.5% of all donors on Canada’s current donor database) We have secured funding from Canadian Blood Services grants to expand to schools across Canada (over $50,000 secured in the past year). We launching a chapter at Ryerson this year, and want you on our team! We are equipped with start-up funds for equipment and to fund meetings/training sessions. Further, we will arrange all required training for the executive team (about 4 hours of training time is required to learn to lead a stem cell drive from start to finish). We will be trained and registered to run stem cell drives on our own. The club is designed to be sustainable, and recruit and train new leaders from the class below that will run stem cell drives of their own the next year. So this initiative could be part of your legacy at Ryerson.
