Sailors and Department of Defense (DoD) civilians participated in the C.W. Bill Young / DoD Marrow Donor Center’s (CWBYDMD) national registry at Trident Training Facility Bangor, Oct. 1.

The CWBYDMD is one of 94 in the U.S. National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), which was established to recruit volunteer marrow donors from active duty military, their immediate family members, civil service employees, Coast Guard, National Guard and reservists.

“There are more than six million people on the registry and at any given time there are 3,300 people searching the registry looking for a match,” said Machinist’s Mate 1st Class (SS/SW) Michael Dayton, Intermediate Maintenance Facility (IMF) Bangor, drive coordinator. “Recently at IMF, we got 126 people registered.”

Dayton said there are many things which are involved with the process of matching donors to the recipients and once you have registered, a donor could be called years after they register.

“Ethnicity plays a huge part in matching someone up,” said Dayton. “There is a large need for minority matches. Chances are, most people who register will never match up, but there have been cases where people have been called 10 years down the road saying that they are a match, often they have forgotten that they were registered.”

Bone marrow transplants are used to treat different types of cancer such as leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma.

The American Cancer Society estimates 35,070 men and women were diagnosed with leukemia in 2006. More than 22,000 men and women will die of this disease during the year.

“Registering to see if you match up with somebody is a great thing, because you would be potentially saving someone’s life,” said Electronics Technician 2nd Class (SS) Travis Hill, TTF. “I’m sure that there is also a lot of research potential as well. Before coming to work today, I knew that you could transplant bone marrow, but I wasn’t sure how or how often it was done. This program is absolutely important, it’s helping to save lives, and that’s what we’re here to do.”

The first step is providing an oral swab sample while filling out a DoD consent form, then the sample is tested to determine your Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) type, which is a genetic marker on your white blood cells that you inherit as you inherit eye and hair color. That coded information, with no names or social security numbers used for identification, is placed in the national registry in Minneapolis, Minn., where it remains until a person’s 61st birthday.

“I knew a little bit about bone marrow donation from watching TV, but there is actually a guy in my class that has donated bone marrow, so he told us a lot about it,” said Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class Roy Elliott, USS Alabama (SSBN 731) (Blue). “It’s definitely a personal choice whether or not you want to register, but I think that putting others first will make this world a better place.”