Classmate looking for a bone marrow donor

A classmate at Oxy and a wonderful person (and 6,000 others in the U.S. at any given time) is looking for a bone marrow donor.

http://ericamurray.blogspot.com/
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/media?id=6058314

You can look for drives by zip code here: http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Join_the_Donor_Registry/Join_in_Person/index.html

Registering is incredibly easy - just a cotton swab in the mouth and it puts you in the registry. When someone like Erica needs a donor, they will search the registry to try to find a match. The fact that she may not find a match is heartbreaking. There are a lot of people in the registry, but it is such a small percentage of our country. In my opinion, everyone should be in it. If you are called, even years later, you should be committed to donating your bone marrow, so I shouldn't pretend it isn't a commitment, but if you read Erica's blog, you will be convinced that donating would be a small price to pay for being able to save someone's life.

People of mixed ethnic backgrounds are especially needed (Erica is half Chinese, half Caucasian): 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.