The UAB hosts the "Dona-MO" campaign to promote the donation of bone marrow

07/05/2018

The Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), with the support of the Josep Carreras Foundation, will host the "Dona-MO" campaign on donation of bone marrow for the treatment of leukemia on May 15th and 16th. The activity has the support of the Community Involvement Unit and a total of 32 volunteers from the School of Biosciences will participate, including the coordinator of the student activity Alex Raventós.
The "Dona-MO" campaign reaches the UAB for the second consecutive year and seeks to obtain bone marrow donors for leukemia patients. Although Dr. Enric Carreras, one of the world's most renowned hematologists, participated in a conference last year, this time, for two days, members of the university community will be able to find tables with informative pamphlets in the Plaça Cívica from 12:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
The José Carreras Foundation was born in July 1987, when the tenor Josep Carreras was diagnosed with leukemia. After overcoming the disease, in 1988 he decided to create a foundation to fight against leukemia. In 1991, the Foundation went on to manage, along with the public health system, the official registry of bone marrow donors. Nineteen years later, in 2010, the Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute (IJC) was created from the Foundation, together with the Generalitat.
As Josep Carreras explained on the IJC website, "of the more than 300,000 new cases of leukemia diagnosed each year in the world, more than 5,000 are diagnosed in Spain. That is, in our country every day 13 people receive this cruel diagnosis». To be a donor you only have to be between 18 and 55 years old and not suffer from any serious illness. The process is very simple and, unlike what is believed, it is not related to the spinal cord.