Just a quick note to let you know that there will be a drive to register new stem cell donors tomorrow - 10am to 4pm at the Ainstree Hospital (Liverpool, L9 7AL). This will be an amazing opportunity to sign up to be a life-saver in waiting! Please go along and let any friends and family in the area know. This Drive is, of course, for anyone between 17-55 years old (and in relatively good health) to sign up - all it takes is two minutes swabbing your cheeks. But they are particularly hopeful that they will identify someone with Irish or Croatian heritage. This is to help a woman named Tan - someone who has been a great support to Ruby and the Register for Ruby campaign. Taken from the #findtanadonor Facebook page: “Tania Murphy, an Australian mother of two urgently needs a bone marrow transplant to save her life. Tania was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia on the 7th of July 2016. Despite there being about 28 million people registered on global bone marrow donor registries Tania has been told there are no compatible donors on the registry for her. Tania underwent her fourth round of intense chemotherapy late last year, and has recently been told by her doctors the only lifeline left for her is a bone marrow transplant. She is unable to have any more chemotherapy if she were to come out of remission. Time is absolutely crucial.” In the same way that Ruby struggled to find someone whose mixed heritage matched her own, Tan is facing the same issue. Her background is a mixture of the Balkans and Ireland - so her match is most likely to have a similar background. If you have connections with groups of adults from those parts of the world, please let them know of Tan’s search. It’s not impossible, however, that her match could be anyone. So, as always, we need to increase registration and cord blood collection across the board! You can sign up through Anthony Nolan or DKMS (www.dkms.org.uk) online - they’ll send out a pack with swabs very quickly. It really is the simplest but most precious thing.