Glasgow Uni Marrow are doing a #Match4Lara drive on Wednesday

Glasgow uni’s Marrow group are running a drive at the QM on Wednesday, 3rd of February, from 10am to 8pm.

The #match4lara campaign started after Lara, a 24 year old, was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia in December 2015.

The search for a suitable donor began after it was discovered that her brother was not a suitable match.

Lara’s friends, Yasmin Moore and Lisa Petzal, who both live in Glasgow, have been working with Glasgow university’s Marrow group in order to promote this drive.

Lara is of Chinese, Thai and Italian heritage, which means her match is likely to be from someone with mixed race heritage. However her search is that much harder as only 3 per cent of people on the worldwide bone marrow donor registry are mixed race.

Lara

Yasmin, who is one of the girls organising the drive, said: ”Lara’s incredibly grateful for all the work that even complete strangers have been doing. Stories, like a lady in Nepal asking how she could help when she doesn’t have a home because of the Earthquake or the man who travelled 8 hours by bus across Thailand to register, have really touched her and kept her positive. One of the most important things for Lara is also how many other potential lives can be saved because of how successful this campaign has been.”

When speaking about how to donate, Yasmin went on to say: ”Spitting in a tube to register isn’t glamorous but definitely the easiest way to save a life. If you are a match, the process is mainly like giving blood and people have said the most uncomfortable part has been removing sticky tape from hairy arms!

“So, not at all like those horror stories that seem to get passed around.

”This is a call to mixed race and ethnic communities in particular because no one’s health should ever be disadvantaged because of their heritage. Even if you think you’re unlikely to be a match for Lara, please still sign up, as you could still be the match someone else is so desperately waiting for.”

The #match4lara campaign is an attempt to diversify the registers on the stem cell donations, so that every ethnicity has an equal chance of finding a match.

The link to the event is here.