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Celebrating Life: A Stem Cell Recipient Meets Her Donor at the NMDP ONE Forum – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Jan 29, 2025, 12:07

Celebrating Life: A Stem Cell Recipient Meets Her Donor at the NMDP ONE Forum – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute shared a post on LinkedIn:

“Each year at the NMDP’s (formerly known as the National Marrow Donor Program) ONE Forum, a stem cell transplant recipient is selected to meet their stem cell donor. The meeting provides an opportunity for the community of people who coordinate and match donors with patients to come together and celebrate the donors’ generosity and the renewed life they have brought to patients.

Although Rachel Kerr, a cell therapy coordinator in Donor Services, does not always attend this annual conference in person, she chose to do so in 2024. To her surprise, Kerr discovered that a patient and donor she had recently matched were scheduled to meet onstage.

“It was pure luck that it was my patient,” recalls Kerr, who usually does not meet the patients and donors she matches. “I thought, ‘This will definitely be one of the highlights of my career.’”

Kerr works behind the scenes to facilitate allogeneic stem cell transplants, which involve using stem cells from a donor to help patients in need. After Kerr matches a donor with a patient, she coordinates the intricate process of collecting the donated cells and ensuring their safe delivery to Dana-Farber, where they are prepared for infusion into the patient.

On any given day, Kerr manages about 20 patients. Among them, in the summer of 2023, was Madeleine Farragher, a 66-year-old woman living near Boston who was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She had been treated and was in remission but her doctor, Daniel DeAngelo, MD, PhD, chief of Leukemia, recommended a stem cell transplant to reduce the chance of disease relapse.

When searching for a donor, Kerr takes several factors into account, such as the donor’s age, blood type, and human leukocyte antigen (HLA) receptors on their cells. “I think of HLA as the receptors on cells that help them differentiate ‘self’ from ‘non-self,’” explains Kerr. The more similar the HLA type, the less likely the transplanted cells will be rejected.

In the past, Kerr would have looked for an exact HLA match. Recently, research by Dana-Farber’s Mahasweta Gooptu, MD, showed that a match of seven out of eight HLA markers can provide similar results. This more permissive matching criteria and transplant regimen is making it possible for more people to find matches quicker.

In collaboration with the NMDP, Kerr matched Farragher with a donor in her early 20s who lives in California. Farragher’s transplant was successful. The process was grueling, but after a year, Farragher recovered and was eager to meet her donor at the NMDP event in November 2024.

From the audience, Kerr watched as Farragher and her donor embraced on stage. Farragher recalls marveling that a year earlier, she didn’t have the strength to walk to the second floor at Dana-Farber for her appointments. Now, she was traveling and meeting her donor.

Kerr also had the chance to meet Farragher and her donor at the conference center after their stage appearance. “I cried,” recalls Kerr. “It was so special.”