KOCHI: At an age when most youngsters are busy devising plans to scale great heights in their lives, Ajaykrishnan did something that saved a human life. The 20-year-old student of College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram, donated his bone marrow to a stranger, to become the first person in Kerala and the third in India to do so. His selfless act saved the life of a 12-year-old boy suffering from aplastic anemia (a chronic blood disorder). Ajaykrishnan donated bone marrow through DATRI, an ‘adult unrelated blood stem cell donors registry.’ He learnt about DATRI and stem cell donation at the venue of the annual festival of his college in 2015, where DATRI had set up a kiosk. Ajaykrishnan registered as a donor after the volunteers briefed how stem cell donation by unrelated persons could save patients suffering from disorders like blood cancer.
Recently, he received a call from DATRI informing that his bone marrow had matched with that of a patient. “I signed up as a donor one year ago, and was amazed to know that I was a match for someone whom I did not know,” he said. DATRI co-founder and CEO Raghu Rajagopal said certain non-malignant blood disorders would respond better to bone marrow stem cells than peripheral blood stem cells. “The bone marrow stem cells donated by Ajaykrishnan were transfused into the patient’s blood. It was the third bone marrow harvest from unrelated donor performed in the country. The first two cases were also facilitated by DATRI. Ajaykrishnan is the first unrelated bone marrow donor from Kerala,” he said.
Meanwhile, both Ajaykrishnan and Rajagopal stressed the need to expand the donor base in the country. “Only 1.6 lakh persons among the country’s 1.2 billion population have registered as bone marrow donors. I request all the healthy adults in the 18-50 age group to register as donors, so that they could become lifesavers some day,” said Ajaykrishnan, and pointed out that the procedure was safe and performed at good hospitals. Rajagopal said, “more donors should come forward as blood cancer cases are increasing. I request potential donors to contact DATRI to learn how they could become lifesavers.”