Sonia Rai, only 24 years old, is fighting for her life.  Sonia was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (the most deadly form of leukemia) in mid December and needs a bone marrow transplant urgently to save her life.  


Currently there is no match for Sonia on the national registry.  Sonia’s chance of finding a match is approximately 1 in 20,000....basically, like a needle in a haystack. 


Sonia is of South Asian descent. Though typically there is a stronger chance of finding a match within one's own ethnic group, Sonia has a unique genetic profile, which is a hybrid of Southeast Asian and Caucasian. What this means is, she has a strong possibility of finding a match with people from Hawaii, Philippines, Pakistan, Burma, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, and Australia.   Like South Asians, these communities are vastly under-represented on the national marrow donor registry today, leaving patients like Sonia with little hope of finding a match. 


We can change that. 


The CureSonia campaign was created to broadly scale dozens of marrow donor registration drives across the country, in a short period of time.  The goal is to increase the number of Asians and other minorities on the registry, in order to give Sonia, and many others in need, hope for survival.  Thus far, CureSonia has been able to host over 140 drives in over 25 cities, resulting in 5000+ new potential donors on the national registry.  It is encouraging to see that CureSonia is paying it forward....and giving thousands of other patients the hope of finding a match. 


How CureSonia needs your help:


(1) ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO REGISTER. We have several CureSonia drives coming up events listed here. We want to encourage people to overcome their fears and misconceptions about the bone marrow donation process – it is far less invasive than people think and it could save a life!  The registration process entails a form and 4 cheek swabs – 10 minutes and very simple. 


(2) SPREAD THE WORD.  Please forward this email to anyone from India, Hawaii, Samoa, Philippines, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Burma, Nepal.  We need more people from these communities to join the registry. This will give hope to Sonia and many other patients from these communities who anxiously await that life-saving phone call that a match has been found. 


Please visit Cure Sonia attend, host, or register at one of their upcoming drives.  You could save a Maharani's life.