24 year old Lara Casalotti was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). Lara, who is of Chinese-Thai and Italian ancestry, needs a stem cell donor to save her life but due to her genetically diverse background, her chance of finding a match is limited.
Less than 3% of donors on the worldwide bone marrow donor registry are of mixed race… and only a small portion of them are a Asian-European like Lara. Mixed-race individuals have a 20% chance of finding a match compared to caucasians who have a 60%.
The Match4Lara campaign calls for people of all ethnicities to sign up and diversify the donor registries all over the world. You can make a difference by joining a bone marrow registry. It's as easy as spitting into a test tube or using a cheek swab. If you turn out to be a match for one of the 37,000 other people around the world in need, you could save a life!