Canada's first cord-blood bank is expected to be approved by provincial governments in June. Canada's provincial deputy health ministers are meeting in June to approve the business plan for the cord-blood bank, at a cost of $7 to $10 million. It's expected to cost $2 million a year to run it.

A national opinion poll last year found 89 per cent of Canadians support a national bank, and 85 per cent would be interested in donating if they had children.

To read the full article on Canada.com please click here.

Canadian Blood Services forecasts 900,000 units of blood will be needed in 2008, with hospital demand continuing to grow by 2% each year. That amounts to 17,000 extra units of blood this year alone.Patients undergoing cancer treatments are one of the largest blood recipient groups in Canada. To read the full article in The Brampton News, click here.

A Blood Drive is being held in Honour of Katelyn Bedard Thursday, April 10, 2008 between 3-pm and 8pm at St.Anne's Parish Hall in Tecumseh. Please call 1-888-2DONATE to book your appointment for the clinic or for another time that is convenient for you. Please help us support those receiving bone marrow transplants.

Cristina Copa, a Portuguese woman living in Leamington, Ontario is in desparate need of help from the Portuguese community. She needs a life saving bone marrow transplant immediately but tragically there is no match for her in the world bone marrow registry. Cristina needs to find someone with the same human leukocyte antigen (HLA) type. HLA type is inherited and as a result, the donor typically has to have the same ethnic background as the patient. Cristina and her family are reaching out to the Portuguese Community imploring people to join the bone marrow registry to possibly help Cristina or someone else that is in dire need of a bone marrow transplant.

Cristina was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in 2001 when she was just 36 years old. She has endured many rounds of chemotherapy and has enjoyed brief periods of remission. However, she has now had multiple relapses and the only treatment that can help her is a bone marrow transplant. Cristina understands the seriousness of her disease and is reaching out for help not just for herself, but for the many others that also need a bone marrow donor to save their life.

The Copa family is holding a fundraiser for Cristina in Leamington on March 30, 2008:

Note: The Cristina Copa fundraiser is not a Katelyn Bedard Bone Marrow Association event. However, the Katelyn Bedard Bone Marrow Association will be at this event to present information about bone marrow donation and to answer any questions you may have about how to join the bone marrow registry.

1,100 residents from British Columbia took part in a new method of registering with OneMatch that is quick, easy and does not require taking a blood test. It starts by registering online at www.onematch.ca, then a free buccal swab kit is mailed to your home with instructions and a postage paid return envelope. The process is as easy as brushing your teeth to obtain a sample of your DNA which is then sent back to the Canadian Blood Services HLA lab and extracted for HLA typing and added to the OneMatch database of 227,000 Canadians. This database is used to help life-threatening illnesses such as leukemia, lymphoma or Sickle-Cell disease all over the world.

You can read the full story here for more details.

Rihanna and her charity Believe has joined forces with DKMS the world's largest non-profit marrow donor center to help find donor for New York mother of two Lisa Gershowitz who is battling leukemia.

You can read the full story here for more details.

• Toddler Faces Bone Marrow Challenge
• Rare Bone Marrow Double-Match Allows Both Husband, Wife to Save Strangers’ Lives
• Drive for bone marrow donors begins at basketball game
• DKMS Where Leukemia Meets Its Match
• Creating a Cord-Blood Lifeline
• A Bone Marrow Drive to Save a Kennewick Girl

A 12 year old boy from Swan Lake had the opportunity of meeting his bone marrow donor for the first time in New York City. Cole was first diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2001. Four years later, doctors discovered he had developed a secondary adult form of the disease. In 2005, Cole received a successful bone marrow transplant from outside Canada. To read the full story in the Winnipeg Sun, please click here.

Dr. Claude Perreault

GVHD is a serious, some times fatal complication of bone marrow transplants. According to the National Marrow Donor Program, "In GVHD, the immune cells from the donated marrow or cord blood (the graft) attack the body of the transplant patient (the host). GVHD can affect many different parts of the body. The skin, eyes, stomach and intestines are affected most often. GVHD can range from mild to life-threatening." Dr. Perreault is working to develop a simple test to screen candidate donors prior to being selected to determine if they would put the recipient at a higher risk for GVHD.

Dr. Claude Perreault is the Principal Investigator, Immunobiology Laboratory, Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer. He is also a Full Professor, Department of Medicine, Université de Montréal and a Hematologist, Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital. He is currently the Canada Research Chair in Immunobiology. Additional information about Dr. Perreault and his work can be found here:

Profile at IRIC
French language article published in FORUM
Globe and Mail article

The Katelyn Bedard Bone Marrow Association will continue to support Dr. Perreault's research on an ongoing basis. This is only possible thanks to the help of our generous supporters. If you would like to make a donation, follow the link on our ways you can help page.

About our Research Sponsorship Program.