Gift of Life Marrow Registry
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| Non-profit | |
| Industry | Health care |
| Founded | Boca Raton, Florida, USA (1991) |
| Headquarters | Boca Raton, USA |
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Key people
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Jay Feinberg, CEO William Begal, Chairman |
| Website | www.giftoflife.org |
The Gift of Life Marrow Registry is a public bone marrow and blood stem cell registry headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. Gift of Life facilitates transplants for children and adults suffering from life-threatening illnesses, including leukemia, lymphoma, other cancers and genetic diseases.
Gift of Life was the first registry in the world to Human Leukocyte Antigen tissue type bone marrow donors on a mass scale at donor drives using buccal swabs.
Gift of Life was founded following a successful bone marrow registration drive to save the life of Jay Feinberg, a 23-year-old analyst with the Federal Reserve.
Feinberg was diagnosed with leukemia in 1991, and from 1991 to 1995 a campaign was organized to register new donors. He was told that a transplant could save his life, but he would die because he couldn't find a matching donor. A patient's best chance of finding a genetic match lies with those of similar ethnic background. Unfortunately, the worldwide registry was not representative of all ethnic groups, and Jay was Jewish. There was an urgent need to add diversity to the registry, and time was of the essence. Since tissue type is inherited, like eye or hair color, a patient's best chance of finding a genetic match lies with those of similar ethnic background. For Jay, those were donors of Eastern European Jewish descent.
Gift of Life is a non-profit organization granted tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of the United States. Although it operates a public resource available to patients globally, it does not receive government funding.
Gift of Life is one of two registries listing unrelated bone marrow donors in the United States. Only 30 percent of patients with diseases treatable with a bone marrow transplant can find a suitable donor among their family members. The remaining 70 percent must rely on the generosity of an unrelated donor to save their lives. There are 75 marrow and stem cell donor registries from 53 countries, and 53 cord blood registries from 36 countries as of October 2015.
Bone Marrow: Marrow is found in the hollow cavities of the body's large bones. Donation involves withdrawing 2-3 percent of the donor's total marrow from the iliac crest of the hip, posterior aspect of the donor's pelvic bone. There is no cutting or stitching. The procedure involves a needle aspiration, performed using an anesthetic. Typically, the donor enters a medical center’s outpatient facility in the morning and goes home in the afternoon. Today, bone marrow is requested approximately 20 percent of the time.
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