Elizabeth Dovich (senior, communications), an Andrews University Honors student, will be helping to host a bone marrow donor drive from March 5-7. Any permanent resident of the United States between the ages of 18 and 40 and with no pre-existing health conditions is invited to come to the Campus Center to be added to the organization NMDP’s bone marrow donor registry. The appointed times to register to become potential donors are listed below.
Tuesday, March 5: 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, March 6: 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, March 7: 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
This drive doubles as a fervent passion and an academic assignment for Dovich. Inspired by her own life-saving procedure when she received a bone marrow transplant at 13 years old after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, Dovich decided to make her Honors Thesis Project for the J.N. Andrews Honors Program based upon the necessity of bone marrow donors and stem cell research across the country. Andrews’ Student Involvement, Leadership, and Activities (SILA) is also helping to coordinate the registry event.
In her partnership with NMDP–which was formerly known as the National Marrow Donor Program and Be The Match–Dovich seeks to grow the national registry of willing bone marrow donors “so that if there is somebody who matches with the recipient, the person who’s donating can maybe save a life.” With a tentative goal of getting at least 100 people from the Andrews University community to register, Dovich is inviting those who may not be permanent US residents or may be unsure of their qualifications to find out if they may qualify for international bone marrow registries or other means of support.
Although the sound of donating bone marrow, something deep within your body and skeletal structure, may be daunting, Elizabeth Dovich and NMDP want to assure the public that the process is not very complicated or dangerous at all. The NMDP’s website explains how important bone marrow is due to it acting as the site of blood cell generation. Bone marrow helps to generate new healthy cells to replace dead or infected ones through stem cells. Stem cells can be modified to repair tissue that can be impacted by diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and forms of leukemia and cancer like what Dovich had.
When one joins a bone marrow donor registry, they start off with a cheek swab and questionnaire to get tested and see if they qualify as a healthy enough participant and a potential match for patients. Dovich and NMDP liken the most common process of donating bone marrow, peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) donation, to a regular blood donation but with an emphasis on harvesting stem cells. According to NMDP’s website, PBSC donations are nonsurgical procedures and operate using the bloodstream. If a person on the registry is found to be a match with a patient in need of a transplant, they will be prepared for the donation five days prior to the actual procedure with injections of a drug called filgrastim. Filgrastim will increase the number of stem cells in your bloodstream and allow for it to be harvested through simple blood drawing procedures. Once the blood is drawn, it will be filtered through a machine that collects purely stem cells and returns the rest of the blood to the donor’s body.
A lot of background research and study must be done to determine if a patient can receive a stem cell donation from a registered donor. The biggest factor in determining if a patient can receive a bone marrow transplant from a particular donor is human leukocyte antigen (HLA) markers. According to NMDP, “HLA are proteins…found on most cells in your body. Your immune system uses these markers to recognize which cells belong in your body and which do not.”
If a patient and donor do not have closely matching HLA markers, this creates a high possibility of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), which is when white blood cells and other immune system processes attack the foreign bodies from the donor. Dovich experienced what she calls “a mild case” of GVHD after her transplant. She ended up staying in the hospital for an additional three weeks of pain as her body grew accustomed to the donor’s stem cells. Because her donor’s HLA markers matched closely with hers, this spared her from more severe conditions and symptoms.
Elizabeth Dovich also shared how there are ethnicity-related deficiencies in the bone marrow registry. According to research and various published journals, such as a 2008 study, the chances of a patient of a minority race finding a match on the donor registry is significantly more difficult than it would be for a white patient. The aforementioned 2008 study pointed to various possible reasons for this discrepancy. The researchers, who worked for the Council on Science and Public Health and the American Medical Association and studied NMDP and other registries, accredited a “general mistrust of the medical system by African Americans” being part of the lack of “willingness to donate organs” and participate in other medical procedures. They also mentioned concerns about the underutilization of the registry and information being ineffectively spread in many public spheres. “Misconceptions that donation is risky and painful [decreases] the pool of available donors.”
Dovich also mentioned that “African Americans are the ones [most] at risk for sickle cell anemia, which can be treated with a bone marrow transplant,” which increases the need for more diversity amongst registered donors. Dovich, fueled by her gratefulness for her own recovery and experience and a sense of urgency and care for others in similar circumstances, wants Andrews University to help become part of the solution. She hopes to share a message with the entire campus community regarding helping others in crisis.
She also says, “You can make a difference. You can save somebody’s life. There are 18,000 people in the United States every year who have a disease that a transplant can treat. Because 70% [of patients] won’t find a match in their family, roughly 12,000 will be looking on the registry to find a match. With Andrews being a really diverse community, we have the potential to address this need where there is no equality between ethnic groups. We might not make it perfect, but we can make it better, and I think that’s worth trying at least.”
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.