Step up to save lives at Luton Swab Week
For people with blood cancer or a blood disorder, a stem cell transplant from a matching stranger is often their only hope of survival. And the best match for these patients is likely to be from someone who shares their ethnicity. This is your chance to be the lifesaving match for someone who is waiting for treatment.
If you’re from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background, you’re more likely to have a rare tissue type than someone from a white, northern European background. So you’re less likely to find a perfect matching donor on the stem cell register.
That’s why we’re holding Luton Swab Week from 29 January to 2 February 2024.
Because the more potential lifesavers we can add to the stem cell register – from as many different backgrounds as possible – the better chance everyone has of finding a lifesaving match.
If you’re a student at Luton Sixth Form College, Barnfield College or the University of Bedfordshire, this is your chance to become a potential lifesaver.
If you’re not a student and are aged 16-30, you can still become a lifesaver. Just click on this link to order a postal swab kit
All I really know about my recipient is he’s probably mixed Indian-White-British. And there’s not enough of me on the register.
Sonny, stem cell donor
Signing up is so easy –
it takes no more than 10 minutes and involves two simple steps:
First, you’ll fill in a short form on your mobile, answering basic questions including your age, your height and contact details.
Then you swab both your cheeks. We’ll use this sample to work out your HLA type, which will be recorded on a secure database only accessed for the purpose of making potentially lifesaving matches.
Luton Swab Week is
on your campus now from 29th January
– join us!
You could help save the life of someone with blood cancer or a blood disorder.
Reach out
Visit the stand in your College during Swab Week to sign up to the register
Luton Sixth Form College
Barnfield College
University of Bedfordshire
Not a student? Click here to Join the register
Why we do what we do
How you can help
In partnership with:
Get involved
Following Luton Swab Week 2023:
- 83% of donors registered were from ethnically diverse backgrounds
- 50% increase in ethnically diverse donors from Luton on the Anthony Nolan stem cell register
Incredible results – let’s do even more in 2024!