100KCheeks: Finding Amit's Donor
Can Social Media Save Amit Gupta?
You probably know that Leukemia is a form of cancer of the blood or bone marrow. You might know that bone marrow transplants are a form of treatment. But did you know that certain populations are dramatically under-represented in existing bone marrow registries? The story that gave rise to this effort is that of Sameer Bhatia, a Stanford undergrad-turned-entrepreneur, whose friends harnessed social media to help bank 24,611 South Asians into the National Bone Marrow Registry to find him a perfect match.
Because of this story and others like it, students from Stanford’s Haas Center and Stanford GSB are working with DoSomething.org to harness social media for social change. They call themselves 100KCheeks, their goal being to help bank 100,000 people into the national bone marrow donor registry. To achieve their goal, the students are harnessing the principles in the book, The Dragonfly Effect, to harness social media, combined with on-the-ground efforts, to achieve their goal of getting one hundred thousand individuals into the National Bone Marrow Registry this year. And in that process – hopefully find matches for others like Sameer.
Amit Gupta is one. He is a 32 year old, South Asian entrepreneur. Three weeks ago he was diagnosed leukemia. As of today, Amit has 40 days to find a perfect bone marrow donor match. Please join the registry to see if you might be his match by simply registering online; NMDP will mail you a cheek swab so you can swab your cheek and return it – as simple as a Netflix exchange. And if you’d like to help run a drive to register others, please join us by clicking “Help Amit Gupta.”
Cancer can affect to any of us – or a loved one. Perhaps our child. Our brother or sister. Our parent. Our friend.
We must increase the number of bone marrow donors registered, not just to save Amit, but to protect our community. Join us.
You probably know that Leukemia is a form of cancer of the blood or bone marrow. You might know that bone marrow transplants are a form of treatment. But did you know that certain populations are dramatically under-represented in existing bone marrow registries? The story that gave rise to this effort is that of Sameer Bhatia, a Stanford undergrad-turned-entrepreneur, whose friends harnessed social media to help bank 24,611 South Asians into the National Bone Marrow Registry to find him a perfect match.
Because of this story and others like it, students from Stanford’s Haas Center and Stanford GSB are working with DoSomething.org to harness social media for social change. They call themselves 100KCheeks, their goal being to help bank 100,000 people into the national bone marrow donor registry. To achieve their goal, the students are harnessing the principles in the book, The Dragonfly Effect, to harness social media, combined with on-the-ground efforts, to achieve their goal of getting one hundred thousand individuals into the National Bone Marrow Registry this year. And in that process – hopefully find matches for others like Sameer.
Amit Gupta is one. He is a 32 year old, South Asian entrepreneur. Three weeks ago he was diagnosed leukemia. As of today, Amit has 40 days to find a perfect bone marrow donor match. Please join the registry to see if you might be his match by simply registering online; NMDP will mail you a cheek swab so you can swab your cheek and return it – as simple as a Netflix exchange. And if you’d like to help run a drive to register others, please join us by clicking “Help Amit Gupta.”
Cancer can affect to any of us – or a loved one. Perhaps our child. Our brother or sister. Our parent. Our friend.
We must increase the number of bone marrow donors registered, not just to save Amit, but to protect our community. Join us.
