Singing for a Cause – DATRI, Blood Stem Cell Donor Registry

I had not heard of DATRI and did not know what the organization did until my mom’s friend Raghu Rajagopal talked to me about it and asked me if I could help him raise awareness for their cause. I learned about how life-threatening conditions such as Mixed Phenotypic Acute Leukemia, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, and Thalassemia could result in lifelong detrimental effects for the patients and their families all over the world. Raghu Uncle told me that DATRI (which means donor in Sanskrit) is a non-profit organization that was founded in 2009 with a mission to save lives of those suffering from life-threatening blood disorders like Blood Cancer, Aplastic Anemia, etc. He said that while working in the US, his friend’s fiancée of Indian origin needed a bone marrow or blood stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor in order to survive. However, they could not find a match in the US registry or in other international registries. So he conducted an awareness campaign amongst the Indian community to register them as potential blood stem cell donors. He then moved back to India, to see how he could make a difference.

Seeing the urgent need for a donor registry in India, he worked with Dr. Nezih Cereb and Dr. Soo Young Yang who were the founders of Histogenetics, a US-based laboratory which performs high-resolution HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen) typing, to create a wide and diverse database of potential blood stem cell donors. This database can be accessed by any patient, living anywhere in the world, in need of a blood stem cell transplant. The three of them came together to form DATRI. Histogenetics helped DATRI in designing the software required to run the operations of the registry in India.

Raghu uncle went on to tell me how they had made a difference in so many peoples’ lives. DATRI has so far registered more than 400,000 potential Blood Stem Cell donors and saved 542 lives till date.  I read some of the notes from patients on their website with tears in my eyes. One of them said “Heartfelt thanks to the donor who donated a Life to me and my family. And then there was another who wrote: “Today I am living my second life and all gratitude to the donor”. Several more read â€œHe has gifted my son his mother back to him”.  â€œHe gave back our Little Champ and we are desperately waiting to meet the donor.”  I could go on and on about the many more such touching stories that moved me to tears.

I was told by Raghu Uncle that every year more than 10,000 children are born with Thalassemia and such children need regular blood transfusions to survive if they are unable to find a Blood Stem Cell Donor. Ethnicity plays a vital role in Blood Stem Cell Donation and only healthy Indians can help ailing Indians. But unfortunately, many Indians are not aware of Blood Stem Cell Donation. In fact, despite India being one of the most populous countries only 0.2% of the Indians have registered as Blood Stem Cell Donors. So, when he asked me if I could give a concert to raise awareness of their cause, I immediately jumped at the opportunity.

As I was singing on stage, I was reminded of my Guru Tara Aunty who always tells her students to “find ways to give back to the community.” While what I did was miniscule compared to what DATRI has accomplished, the fact that I brought awareness to DATRI’s cause to the 80 odd people in the audience made me feel proud and happy. Thanks to Raghu uncle for giving me this opportunity.

Through this article, I am hoping to bring awareness of their wonderful work to all of you.  For more details on DATRI and to know how you can become someone’s superhero you can visit http://www.datri.org/.

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