The Gift of Life Marrow Registry is Florida’s Beach County’s first-ever stem cell collection center, making it much quicker and more convenient for donors to help save the lives of patients with blood cancer. As described in a news release this April, the new Gift of Life headquarters, a 22,000-square-foot facility in Boca Raton, Florida, is the first marrow registry to integrate a state-of-the-art, on-site stem cell collection center. The organization is also planning a future biobank that will enable it to provide additional services.
According to the Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration, about 17,500 people develop a life-threatening disease that requires a bone marrow transplant or umbilical cord blood transplant to survive. HHS says only 30 percent of patients have a relative who matches and is able to donate with the remaining (approximately 12,000 people) depending on volunteers to donate healthy marrow.
Since 1991, Gift of Life has more than 325,000 individuals who have volunteered to donate blood stem cells or marrow to save a life. Over 15,000 matches have been made for a range of blood cancer patients, resulting in more than 3,300 transplants.
Gift of Life donors at the facility will have the option to customize their experience and communicate their needs to a dedicated donor concierge. “The new apheresis center will shatter the typical image of a collection facility,” said Jay Feinberg, Gift of Life’s CEO and founder, himself a 24-year transplant survivor. “The goal is to celebrate the donors and make the process more comfortable.”
To do this, donors will have access to video games, movies, massages and gourmet meals. The organization added that integrating the new collection center into its registry headquarters will also streamline the donor search and procurement process, making the time to transplant for patients in urgent need faster and more efficient. “Since so many patients are battling acute diseases, one of their biggest enemies is time,” said the organization. “Making this process faster will enable more patients to receive the transplants they need, when they need them.”
