50 Armenian Students Join Bone Marrow Donor Registry

Armenpress

50 ARMENIAN STUDENTS JOIN BONE MARROW DONOR REGISTRY

YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS: Some 50 young
Armenians, all members of Nikol Aghbalian student
union, closely affiliated with the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation (ARF), have joined today the
Armenian Bone Marrow Registry (ABMDR), established to
respond to those families in crisis, whose members are
suffering from life-threatening blood diseases and who
need a bone marrow transplant from another Armenian.
The action was dedicated to the 91-st anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide and is being held under the
motto ‘Our blood is life for others.” Because of
unique genetic make up of Armenians, it is nearly
impossible to find suitable matches among the existing
international registries and hence a great number of
Armenian children and adults have lost their lives due
to the lack of compatible donors. To address this
imbalance, a volunteer donor registry for bone marrow
transplant has been established in Armenia to help to
overcome this difficulty.
The Armenian Bone Marrow Registry has now 11,000
registered donors. It is a member of the World Marrow
Donor Association, sharing its database information
with other registries around the world and cooperates
with several international medical centers, including
the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust in England, St
Jude Hospital in Memphis and Glendale Memorial
Hospital in Los Angeles.