Jeevan Blood Bank and Research Centre has launched the Jeevan Stem Cell Registry, to help Indians with blood cancers, thalassemia, sickle cell disease and other blood disorders find stem cell matches.
According to a press release, Jeevan will recruit 50,000 bone marrow donors from across India over the next five years. These potential donors will be in the age group of 20 to 40 and will be from a pool of voluntary blood donors in the country. To qualify, they should have donated blood or platelets twice in the previous two years.
Jeevan will work with blood banks and blood donor organisations across the country for this.
Transplantation of stem cells from donated cord blood or bone marrow offers a 60 to 80 per cent chance of a cure for certain blood disorders. However, only about 30 per cent of patients are able to find a match within the family.
Others need to search within the community. Donated cord blood can be a solution for children, but for adult patients, committed bone marrow donors are the only hope, according to the release.
Even though stem cell donation is voluntary, the process of collecting, testing and transporting the stem cells to transplant centres will cost approximately Rs. 3 lakh.
For patients, the stem cells will be made available on a cost-recovery basis.
The cost is expected to be less than Rs. 3 lakh, the release added.
Fund-raising
The cost of HLA typing for the first 6,000 donors is being funded through a grant from the Jamsetji Tata Trust. Jeevan is hoping to raise funds for this project from corporates under their CSR programmes and through tax exempted public donations.
