ACLT

About me:

The ACLT was established in June 1996 by Beverly De-Gale and Orin Lewis, the parents of Daniel De-Gale.

When the charity was initially set up, Daniel had already been suffering from Leukaemia for 3 years. Daniel’s parents were informed that his only hope of survival was to receive a bone marrow transplant. Due to the fact that bone marrow contains racially specific characteristics, the compatible donor for Daniel could only be found within the black or mixed race population. At the time when the shattering news was revealed, there were just 550 black or mixed race people on the UK bone marrow registers. The Consultant at Great Ormond Street Hospital who was responsible for Daniel informed the parents that there was just an approx. 1 in 250,000 chance of Daniel finding a compatible donor.

Daniel finally won his battle against Leukaemia when on 16th June 1999 at the age of 12 he received a bone marrow transplant from an unrelated American donor, Doreene Carney, at Great Ormond Street Hospital. This enabled Daniel to live a full and fruitful life including successfully passing his exams at school and University.

Daniel was in full remission and free of Cancer, but due to complications with his health that led to multiple organ failure he died aged 21 on the 8th October 2008 in hospital surrounded by his family.

The charity raises awareness which enables potential donors to come forward at the ACLT registration drives to be involved in the process of offering hope and a healthy future to someone whose disorder may otherwise prove fatal. The ACLT has raised the numbers of potential Black/Mixed Race donors from 550 to approx. 27,000 and many lives have been saved in the process.

What is Bone Marrow?

Bone marrow is a spongy tissue found within bones. All blood cells are produced within the marrow. To sustain the necessary levels of blood cells the bone marrow of an adult mist produce about 3,000,000 red blood cells and 120,000 white blood cells every second. All these cells originate from a small population of stem cells. Less than one in 5,000 of the marrow cells is a stem cell.

Many sufferers and their families contact the ACLT from the UK and around the world asking for financial assistance or to raise awareness and recruit potential donors in an attempt to find suitable donors.

Unfortunately, 24,000 sufferers require life saving bone marrow transplants at any one time.

The aim of the ACLT is to raise the required funds to start an independent ACLT Bone Marrow Register that will allow the charity to undertake world wide donor searches. The ultimate aim is to be able to fund the testing of the many potential bone marrow donors stepping forward.

The Registry will be UK based and working in conjunction with the world bone marrow registers, which will enable the ACLT to coordinate the implementation and planning of raising awareness campaigns within the UK for the under represented communities. The charity wants to start small and as funds start to come in will grow, allowing the register to then recruit greater numbers of potential donors from the under represented groups around the world and in future have ACLT laboratories enabling an in-house testing and research facility.

For further information about registering/ fundraising contact the ACLT on tel no. + 44 (0) 20 8 240 4480, e-mail: info@aclt.org or visit the web site www.aclt.org

Beverley De Gale and Orin Lewis - Co Founders of the ACLT