Hillel Hosts Bone Marrow Typing Drive

A bone marrow typing drive sponsored yesterday by the Harvard Hillel and the Gift of Life bone marrow registry drew over 180 participants and volunteers, aiming to find a match for the father of a Harvard undergraduate.

Robert Goldschmidt, father of Elizabeth A. Goldschmidt ’06, has been battling Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia for over a year and may need a bone marrow transplant to live, according to Goldschmidt’s website.

The drive collected samples and information from prospective bone marrow donors and submitted the information to a national shared database.

The process was painless, involving only filling out a form and taking swabs of cheek cells.

“It definitely drew more people because there were no needles involved,” joked Elizabeth Goldschmidt, who was one of the main organizers of the event.

But the event also stemmed from a chance meeting between another member of the Harvard community and a Gift of Life coordinator.

“Hillel staff member Gobi Soble met the national coordinator of the Gift of Life bone marrow registry and thought this would be a nice project to get involved in,” said Erica L. Farber ’07, chair of Hillel’s Social Action committee.

In a case of pure coincidence, less than two days after Soble suggested a drive to Farber, Goldschmidt and her mother approached Hillel about running a bone marrow typing drive to aid her father, a plea that brought the relevance of the situation home.

The students then got in touch with the Gift of Life campaign coordinators, got information on how to run a drive, and started getting word out.

Word did get out. Donors found out from friends, phone calls, announcements at Hillel dinners, and e-mails on various listservs.

Sarah B.J. Goel, a student at Harvard Business School came to the event after getting an e-mail from a friend.

“The process was really easy, and convenient,” Goel said. She further said that having the drive on campus made it an easy stop-over in the midst of her daily activities.

The Gift of Life, founded in 1991, primarily targets donors of Eastern European Jewish descent, but yesterday’s event attracted students of varied heritage.

For Susannah M. Dickerson ’06, one of the volunteers at the swabbing station, not being of Eastern European Jewish descent was immaterial.

“When I think that somebody I know, Liz’s dad, could be saved by my donation, it makes me want to give,” Dickerson said. “In this case, if it can’t be Liz’s dad, then it might be somebody else’s”.

Goldschmidt said the response was more than she had expected.

“People were very enthusiastic and asked about how they could help.”

While this is the only planned bone marrow drive on campus, the Gift of Life database is running more campaigns across colleges.

“Recently there were drives at Brandeis, George Washington and Bernard colleges,” Goldschmidt said.

Samples collected yesterday will be forwarded for tests at the Gift of Life labs, and successful applicants will be entered in the bone marrow registry database.

The database is shared so that doctors nationwide can search for matches for their patients.