How your unique Hispanic ancestry can save a life

​Diversity in the peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) and bone marrow donor pool has never been more important. Patients with life-threatening blood cancers or blood disorders rely on donors like you to help find a cure. Because patients are more likely to match with someone who shares their ethnic background, your Hispanic or Latino ancestry could be the key to saving a life.​​

A blood stem cell donation can cure or treat more than 75 diseases, including leukemia, lymphoma or sickle cell. However, just because someone is willing to donate blood stem cells doesn’t always mean they’re able to. Donors and patients who have closely matching human leukocyte antigens (HLAs)—proteins found on most cells in your body—have the most successful transplant outcomes.

Because HLAs are inherited, ancestry plays a big role in matching. However, Hispanic and Latino backgrounds are underrepresented on the donor registry, Hispanic and Latino patients have a lower chance of finding a matched, available donor on the registry due to underrepresentation. By joining the registry, you could help change that and be the cure that patients need.

Still have questions? Get the facts about donating.

As a donor, you could be the cure for someone in the Hispanic or Latino community or from across the globe. But what about those patients who are unable to find a close HLA match? In an effort to expand access to a cure to all patients, we've launched NMDP^SM Donor for All, an initiative that aims to unlock access to blood stem cell transplant through innovative research using partially matched donors, all while providing outcomes in line with using a fully matched donor.