Photo By Sidney Hinds | KISSIMMEE, Fla. (Aug. 16, 2023) (Left to right) Hugo Araujo, Jennifer Ng, Nora Carden,...... read more read more
KISSIMMEE, Fla. – Staff with the Department of Defense Marrow Donor Program attended the Military Health System Research Symposium (MHSRS) from 14-17 August.
The program, also known as Salute to Life, hosted a booth as part of Naval Medical Research Command (NMRC)’s presence at the symposium. Salute to Life exhibitors shared insights into the methods and technology used to connect marrow and blood stem cell donors with recipients affected by disasters involving radiation and toxic substances.
“Attendance at MHSRS helps our program better understand how we can support Office of Naval Research objectives, and contribute to the readiness of the services,” Dr. Max Grogl, head of the DoD Marrow Donor Program, explained. “That happens through coordination with attending consortium partners and potential collaborators.”
Composed of four partner organizations (NMRC, Georgetown University, the National Marrow Donor Program and the Radiation Injury Treatment Network), Salute to Life maintains a database for U.S. service members and DoD civilians to provide samples and be identified as matches for patients around the globe.
Access to a military donor population offers many advantages for the database and those who benefit from it. The broader ethnic diversity of the DoD compared to the general population, for example, provides donors for minority populations which are otherwise challenging to locate transplants for.
“The military population is young and healthy,” added Hugo Araujo, a project manager for the DoD Marrow Donor Program at Georgetown University. “We know where to find them, and they are eager to volunteer and help others. All this makes them ideal donors for our program.”
This database currently holds information for nearly one million donors. This pool of volunteers can be called upon to donate bone marrow and blood stem cells to individuals in need. Attendees to MHSRS had the opportunity to register for the database and provide samples at the Salute to Life booth.
“I had heard about the program previously,” said one attendee who registered with the database during the symposium. “Registering was easier than I would have guessed, and definitely worth it for the chance to help someone who might need a donation someday.”
Formerly known as Naval Medical Research Center, NMRC supports the Navy, Marine Corps and joint U.S. warfighters through research of infectious diseases, biological warfare detection and defense, combat casualty care, environmental health concerns, aerospace and undersea medicine, medical modeling, simulation, operational mission support, epidemiology and behavioral sciences.
| Date Taken: | 08.16.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 08.17.2023 09:07 |
| Story ID: | 451514 |
| Location: | KISSIMMEE, FLORIDA, US |
| Web Views: | 148 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, DoD Marrow Donor Program Attends MHSRS 2023., by Sidney Hinds, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
