Search is on for Bone Marrow Donor
A bone marrow drive will be held on campus next week, in part to find a donor for a University Teaching Center employee who has been diagnosed with cancer.
Kristopher Weatherly, associate director of the University of Arizona center, has been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia, said Terri Riffe, the University Teaching Center's director. His sister died from a similar condition about six years ago and his brother is not a donor match, Riffe said.
To aid the Weatherly family, the UA center has coordinated a two-day bone marrow drive while working with the Be The Match Registry [1], the new name for the National Marrow Donor Program Registry.
The drive will be held on the UA Mall and the center is encouraging all members of the campus community to provide an inner cheek swab that the registry will then use to determine whether a match has been found. All of the samples will be entered into the national registry for possible future matches.
The drive will be held April 21 and 22 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the UA Mall. There is no charge to participate and the process does not involve needles.
A training session for those who would like to volunteer during the drive will be held Monday, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., in the Tucson Room of the Student Union Memorial Center.