Hillel organizes bone marrow drive

Last October, Wharton alumna Ruthie Spector was on her way out the door, gym bag in hand, when she received the news -- she had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia, and the outlook was grim.

Now, more than four months later, Penn students will join in the crusade to find the cure for Spector.

A bone marrow drive will be held tomorrow at Hillel between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. in the hopes of finding a donor for Spector and thousands of others around the world who have been diagnosed with leukemia and various other diseases that require bone marrow transplants.

The drive is being sponsored by the Gift of Life Foundation, an organization that works to increase genetic diversity within the international bone marrow donor pool. Specifically, the foundation focuses on increasing the overall representation of the Jewish ethnicity, a group whose members typically possess genes that are rare and difficult to match.

Hillel is holding Thursday's drive in the hope of finding a potential match for Spector as well as Barry Mishkin, another leukemia patient. However, the drive will not only benefit these two.

People who are tested will have their information entered into Gift of Life's registry, which is made available to 45 other registries in 35 countries around the world. All names remain in the registry until the donors reach the age of 61.

"God forbid Ruthie doesn't find her match, other people might," Spector's husband Les Salwen said.

As an Ashkenazi Jew, Spector has certain genes that are not commonly found outside of Eastern Europe. During the Holocaust, a large number of Eastern European Jews were killed, and as a result, current members of this ethnic group have only a 20 to 22 percent chance of finding an unrelated bone marrow donor.

Transplant candidates of African, Hispanic and Asian descent have similarly small chances of finding matches in unrelated donors, but Eastern European Jews are the only minority group for which testing is not subsidized by the federal government.

Hence, Gift of Life was born and has subsisted for over 10 years solely on donations. Since its inception in 1991, the foundation has made 400 donor-recipient matches. Jay Feinberg, the foundation's executive director, was the first of those lucky recipients.

After he was diagnosed with leukemia in 1991, Feinberg was told by doctors that there was little hope of finding a bone marrow donor, and the best they could do was to make him comfortable while he waited to die.

Determined not to give up, Feinberg and his family set out in search of a miracle. Three-and a-half years later, their prayers were answered, and Feinberg's miracle match was found. The pursuit of this same miracle for the thousands of others in search of bone marrow donors is now his life's work.

Spector was diagnosed with acute myeloblastic leukemia last October after suffering from dental problems that had become increasingly painful over the course of the summer. While the average age of diagnosis of this particular disease is 61, Spector was only 41.

Since her diagnosis, her husband -- also a Penn alumnus -- has led a tireless effort to find a donor match for his wife, who is also the mother of three children.

"There is an opportunity for someone out there in the world to save a life, and you save more than a life -- you save a mother of these young children," Salwen said.

While Spector's illness progressed quickly, others suffer from forms of leukemia that progress more slowly. Mishkin is one of those people. Afflicted with acute lymphocytic leukemia two-and-a-half years ago, he is still searching for that one matching donor who will give him a chance at survival.

According to Jody Treiser, Gift of Life's community affairs coordinator, the chances of finding a match for Spector or Mishkin is extremely small, but the effort still needs to be made.

"You can save somebody's life. How could you not do it?" Treiser said.

For Spector and thousands of others diagnosed with leukemia each year, the first step in treatment is chemotherapy. If the chemotherapy is not effective, their best chance for survival is a bone marrow transplant.

Since her diagnosis in October, over 30 drives have been held and over 16,000 potential donors have been tested, but a match has yet to be found for Spector.

"Every action counts," Feinberg said. "Every person that comes can be that one person that saves Ruthie's life."

The Gift of Life Foundation has provided Thursday's drive with supplies to test up to 800 people, hoping for a large turnout.

And worried students can rest easier knowing that the procedure is relatively painless. Testing will be self-performed, and a buccal swab will be used to collect tissue samples from the inside of the cheek.

"One of the things that gets in the way of people getting tested is that they think it's painful," Salwen said, dispelling any myths that the procedure is invasive and unpleasant.

"There are a lot of people who are apprehensive about having their blood taken, so the cheek swab is very convenient," added College freshman David Perkel, the organizer of Thursday's drive.

Although tissue collection is non-invasive, donors do need to understand that the process of donating marrow, should they be a match for a candidate in need of a transplant, isn't quite as simple.

There are two methods of transplantation. In a peripheral blood stem cell transplant, a drug is given to the donor intravenously which stimulates marrow to shower cells into the blood stream. The blood containing these cells is then extracted from the donor, and the cells are separated for transplantation into the recipient.

In the bone marrow harvest procedure, 2 to 3 percent of the donor's total marrow is withdrawn from the pelvic bone using a needle.

Both procedures are invasive, but donors are anesthetized and treated afterwards for pain. They are typically released on the same day that the procedure is performed.

Although there is no tangible reward for the efforts of marrow donors, hopes are high for the turnout on Thursday, and countless efforts have been made to get the word out. Perkel urges all students to attend and become potential donors.

"Bring your friends, bring your friends' friends," he said. "We need as many people as possible."

"The higher the numbers that we test, the better the odds are of finding a match," Feinberg added.

For additional information about the Gift of Life Foundation, visit www.giftoflife.org. Those interested in supporting Spector's cause can visit www.helpruthienow.com.

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