You’ve probably seen the campaign doing the rounds on social media. Officially launched in early January, Match4Lara is an appeal for 24-year-old Thai-Chinese-Italian student Lara Casalotti, who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia just before Christmas. The only way to save her life is to find a stem cell donor with the exact match and receive a transplant so that she starts producing healthy blood cells again.

In just over 10 days, the campaign has attracted much attention around world. Here in Bangkok, there’s been a spike in stem cell registry at the National Blood Center (Thai Red Cross Society, Henri Dunant Rd. Open Mon-Fri  8am-4pm and Sat-Sun 8am-3pm). Tomorrow (Jan 19, between 9am-3pm), the center will set up a blood and stem cell donor recruitment drive organized by UNESCAP in Bangkok (76 Rajadamnern Nok Ave).

But if you missed out on registering for tomorrow's drive, you can still visit the center and ask to join the Thai Stem Cell Donor Registry. We went to the National Blood Center last week, and the process is really simple. Once you've filled out the regular blood donation forms, don't forget to head over to the stem cell registry counter to make sure that a sample of your blood will be taken for testing. Do this before you proceed to the second-floor for donation. If the test shows you are a potential match, you will be contacted again by the National Registry. 

Lara is now being treated at University College Hospital in UK. Her mixed heritage means that it’s very rare to find a match (even her own brother isn’t one). But after an analysis of Lara’s parents’ HLAs, people of the following groups are most likely to be a match: Hawaiians, Polynesians/Pacific Islanders, Austranesians (living in New Zealand and Australia), Filipinos and Indonesians. For Thailand, her rare gene shows up more in the following mixed race combinations: European-Thai, Indian-Thai, Korean-Thai, Southeast Asian-Thai, Chinese-Thai.

In Thailand, there are over 1,900 patients who are diagnosed with the same conditions. There are around 37,000 around the world. Many are still lacking awareness of how to get involved. If all this isn't enough to get you inspired, here's a video of an Italian-Thai who took an eight-hour bus ride from Chiang Mai to Bangkok just to register. 

Please RT! A Eurasian donor is desperately needed to save this young woman's life. Do your thing, Twitter! https://t.co/oP24CINiOf

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) January 11, 2016

Mixed race? You can do something wonderful with your unique identity - save a life. Do read this: https://t.co/YeeYXuuHFI #match4lara

— Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) January 9, 2016

You can find more information on the campaign at www.fb.com/match4lara, www.fb.com/match4larathailand and www.match4lara.com, as well as 02-256-4300, 02-263-9600 ext.1 301, 1310 or 1771.