Today we bring you a guest blog from Athena Mari Asklipiadis. She’s the founder of Mixed Marrow, which is an organization dedicated to finding bone marrow and blood cell donors to patients of multiethnic descent. Athena helped produce a 2016 documentary film called Mixed Match that encourages mixed race and minority donors to register as adult donors.

Athena Asklipiadis

Due to the lack of diversity on the national and world bone marrow donor registries, Mixed Marrow was started in 2009 to increase the numbers of mixed race donors.

Prior to Mixed Marrow starting, other ethnic recruiters like Asians for Miracle Marrow Matches (A3M), based in Los Angeles, CA and Asian American Donor Program (AADP), based in Alameda, CA had been raising awareness in the Asian and minority communities for decades.  Closing the racial gap on the registry was something I was very much interested in helping them with so I began my outreach on the most familiar medium I knew—social media.

Because matching relies heavily on similar inherited genetic markers, I was particularly astonished seeing the less than 3% (back in 2009) sliver of the ethnic pie that mixed race donors made up.  Caucasians made up for about 70% at the time, with all minorities making up for the difference.  The ethnic breakdown made sense when comparing against actual population numbers, but a larger pool of minority donors was definitely something needed especially when multiracial people were being reported as the fastest growing demographic in the US.  Odds were just not in the favor of non-white searching patients.

Current Be The Match ethnic breakdown as of 2016.

After getting to know a local mixed race searching patient, Krissy Kobata, and hearing of her struggles finding a match, I knew I had to do my best to reach out to fellow multiracial people, most of which were young and likely online.  At the time, I was engaged with fellow hapas (half in Hawaiian Pidgin, referring mixed heritage) and mixed people via multiracial community Facebook groups and other internet forums.  One common thing I noticed, unlike topics like identity, food and culture– health was definitely not widely talked about. So with that lack of awareness, Mixed Marrow began as a facebook page and later as a website.  With the help of organizations like A3M supplying Be The Match testing kits, Mixed Marrow was able to also exist outside of the virtual world by hosting donor recruitment drives at different cultural and college events.

Athena Asklipiadis, Krissy Kobata and Mixed Match director, Jeff Chiba Stearns

After about a year of advocacy, in 2010, I connected with filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns to pitch an idea for a documentary on the patients I worked with.  Telling their stories in words and on flyers was not effective enough for me, I felt that more people would be inclined to register as a donor if they got to know the patients as well as I did.  Thus, the film Mixed Match was born.

Still from Mixed Match, Imani (center) and parents, Darrick and Tammy.

Still from Mixed Match, Imani mother, Tammy.

Over the course of the next 6 years, Jeff and I went on a journey across the US to gather not only patient stories, but input from pioneers in stem cell transplantation like Dr. Paul Terasaki and Dr. John E. Wagner.  It was so important to share these transplant tales while being as accurate and informed as possible.

Still from Mixed Match – Dr. Paul Teriyaki.

Our goal was to educate audiences and present a call-to-action where everyone can learn how they can save a life. Mixed Match not only highlights bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) donation, but it also shares the possibilities of umbilical cord stem cells.

Mixed Match director, Jeff Chiba Stearns decided a great way to explain stem cell science and matching was through animation.  Stearns, with the help of animator, Kaho Yoshida, was able to reach across to non-medical expert audiences and create digestible and engaging imagery to teach what is usually very complex science.

Animation Still from Mixed Match.

At every screening we also make sure to host a bone marrow registry drive so audiences have the opportunity to sign up.  We have partnered with both the US national registry, Be The Match and Canadian Blood Services’ One Match registry.

Bone marrow drive at a Mixed Match screening in Toronto.

Nearly 8 years and about 40 cities later, Mixed Marrow has managed to spread advocacy for the need for more mixed race donors all over the US and even other countries like Canada, Japan, Korea and Austria all the while being completely volunteer-run.  It is our hope that through social media and film, Mixed Match, we can help share these important stories and save lives.

Further Information

• Learn more about Mixed Marrow at www.mixedmarrow.org or @mixedmarrow on social media (Twitter and Instagram).
• For more on the documentary Mixed Match and how you can see it, visit www.mixedmatchproject.com or @mixedmatchmovie on social media (Twitter and Instagram).
• Register in the US as a donor by visiting join.bethematch.org/mixedmatch or by checking out our upcoming drives here: www.mixedmatch.org/calendar