Did you know a simple swab can save the life of someone across the world? That’s what the Israeli-American organization Ezer Mizion is doing on a daily basis.
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As the world’s largest Jewish bone marrow registry worldwide, the organization helps Jews around the world find matching donors for life-saving bone marrow transplants – a procedure used in the treatment of nearly 100 diseases including leukemia, Hodgkin’s, blood diseases and more.
The science is easy – but not simple. Due to genetic factors, it can be incredibly difficult to find a matching donor when needed for critical procedures, even from family members. Ezer Mizion says, “in order to be a suitable donor for a bone marrow transplant, recipients must be nearly identical matches with their donors for tissue-type markers known as HLA proteins.” Unfortunately, family members often aren’t close enough matches to be donors. That’s where Ezer Mizion comes in.
Globally, there are 44 million potential donors in the global bone marrow donor registry, but there are very few Jewish donors. As Dr. Bracha Zisser, founder and director of Ezer Mizion's International Bone Marrow Donor Registry tells Ynet, only about 30% of patients in need find a match through their immediate family due to the high variability of HLA proteins. As a result of Jews living in somewhat isolated communities throughout history and around the world, their genetic similarity is much closer than non-Jews. “Jews have similar genetic structure…But there is less than a 5% chance to find a match if you are Jewish, “ says Dr. Zisser. It was this exact phenomenon that inspired her to establish the first Jewish bone marrow database.
Dr. Zisser’s journey began from a personal experience when her husband Mordechai became ill in 1991 with leukemia and was unable to find a bone marrow donor. While Mordechai was able to survive using a different experimental treatment, the entire process led Dr. Zisser to pursue a path toward broadening the base of donors in the Jewish world globally.
In 1998, Dr. Zisser and Ezer Mizion created the first Jewish database of donors in Israel to assist Jewish individuals in need internationally and increase the odds of finding matching donors for patients in need. The campaign to expand the donor base began painstakingly, running drives when patients needed donors, but that changed in 2005.
Dr. Zisser had the idea to work with the Israel Defense Forces to give each incoming healthy soldier the option to become a donor by simply taking a swab to be added to the database. Like in all donations, if the donor is a match, they are notified later and given the option to do a completely safe four-hour procedure to donate bone marrow that can save the donation recipient’s life. “Every year we have 50,000-60,000 young people going into the army…it was difficult to convince the army but we succeeded,” said Dr. Zisser.
Thanks to Dr. Zisser, donation collection for the bone marrow registry is now a part of the first day of the IDF for every Israeli soldier. This created a massive rise in the number of potential donors in the database, especially for the Jewish world.
In 2009, with the case of 6-year-old Israeli Amit Kadosh, the database again saw substantial growth with a drive of 62,000 donations. Sadly, the Ezer Mizion database was unable to find a match for Amit Kadosh at the time, but she was able to seek alternative treatment abroad and recovered. Dr. Zisser also told Ynet that as a result of the donation drives for Amit Kadosh, 100 other lives were saved from those same donations.
In addition to the donation drives as induction day for the IDF, Dr. Zisser reports that one of the ways Ezer Mizion is working to expand its database in Israel is also by running drives in yeshivot in religious communities.
Today, there are 1,2 million donors in the registry, and Dr. Zisser reports that just under 5,000 lives have been saved as a result. Of those registered, 40% of the matches are within Israel and 60% are matched with a patient outside of Israel. But even today, that’s not enough to match every patient in need – Murray Foltyn from Australia is one of those cases currently looking for a bone marrow donor.
Murray has a rare form of blood cancer called myelofibrosis that disrupts the normal production of blood cells. One of the best chances for a healthy recovery is through a bone marrow transplant, but Murray, who is an Ashkenazi Jew, doesn’t have a match. Throughout the last month, Murray’s family in Israel and abroad has been holding drives to find a match for Murray. “Since we understand the situation with Murray we’ve done a few blood drives already and we are doing a few more before Passover,” says Dr. Zisser.
Through Ezer Mizion, Murray’s aunt Hilary Herzberger, has helped to establish donation events globally and is urging Israelis and contacts internationally to join the database. “I contacted Ezer Mizion and I was very fortunate to be directed to Dr. Zisser and we straight away started cooperating...everybody came on board including family, friends, volunteers…and there are events worldwide. For me personally, this Jewish network of caring has really blown us away.”
Ezer Mizion’s focus now is expanding that database as much as possible to increase the likelihood of finding a match for Murray. “My prime aim is to find a match for Murray, but I really see this as a win-win for everybody because the more people who get onto the bone marrow registry, the more likely we find matches for anybody who needs it,” said Hilary.
Dr. Zisser and Murray’s family both emphasized to Ynet that the process of becoming a donor is easy and painless, as is the actual donation procedure should a donor find a match. “Everyone that is healthy can donate,” says Dr. Zisser, who also emphasized that it is no risk for a healthy person to be a donor.
To help Murray and join the bone marrow donor registry go to: https://ezermizion.org/save-murray/
First published: 07:44, 04.02.23