www.projectmichelle.com - My friend sent me his friend's blog recently and I've been both saddened and inspired by it. This girl, Michelle, has leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant, but she's been donor due to the lack of ethnic minorities in the bone marrow registry. I think she's of Vietnamese/Chinese ancestry. I don't even know her, but I've read her entire blog (my internship requires me to be at my computer 19 hours a day) and she seems like a really cool person, and I really hope that she's able to find a match. According to the stats, Caucasians have a 40% chance of finding someone through the registry, but that percentage drops to something below 10% for minorities. I remember getting registered as a bone marrow donor back in 1999, when MIT held a drive in an attempt to save another student. Though David Li ultimately lost his battle with leukemia, I thought that it was pretty inspiring the way students lined up all the way down the Infinite Corridor so they could get typed in the Bush Room. They've actually refined the registrant process a bit since then - the process is now accomplished using cheek swabs (like a DNA test!) and registrants no longer have to give little vials of blood. So easy! I used to be scared about giving marrow because the process involves really big needles and a lot of pain. However, with the advances of modern medicine, the process nowadays is very similar to giving blood, something I've done a number of times without any ill effect. Again, so easy! I normally don't blog about this stuff, and I'm not sure who reads my blog anymore, but this has been on my mind lately. I encourage you to register. You can send away for a home test kit or find a list of drives on Michelle's site. | 
