Help NMDP celebrate 150,000 lives — invite your members of Congress to Capitol Hill

NMDP — the nonprofit that operates the national bone marrow and blood stem cell registry — is marking a milestone. Since 1987, the federal program behind that registry has impacted nearly 150,000 lives. To recognize it, NMDP is holding donor recruitment events and a congressional reception on Capitol Hill on June 3, 2026.

The ask is simple. NMDP supporters — and that includes the Jada Bascom Foundation community — are emailing their two U.S. senators and their House representative to invite them to attend.

It takes about a minute. NMDP has set up a one-page action form at nmdp.quorum.us/campaign/163714 that routes your message to all three of your members of Congress.

A 150,000-life milestone

The number comes from the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program, the federally funded system NMDP runs under contract. Since 1987, NMDP reports, the program has impacted nearly 150,000 lives — patients with leukemia, lymphoma, sickle cell disease, and other blood disorders who needed a transplant from someone outside their own family.

Each of those lives is a search that ended in a match. Most patients who need a transplant will not find a fully matched donor among their relatives; their only chance is a stranger on the registry. The registry now reaches more than 40 million potential donors worldwide, yet for any one patient the right match can still be rare. The 150,000 figure measures how often that search has succeeded — the distance between a diagnosis and a donor, closed one match at a time.

Every one of those lives is someone like Jada. At one month old she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, and no one in her family was a match. Her donor, Torsten Huber, was a stranger five thousand miles away in Germany who had registered with DKMS after reading a newspaper article. Torsten and Jada's story is one entry in a number that now reaches nearly 150,000.

Why Capitol Hill matters

Bone marrow and cord blood transplantation is one of the few cellular therapies the federal government coordinates directly. The C.W. Bill Young program funds the registry, the national cord blood inventory, and the search system that connects patients to unrelated donors. Its legal authority is set to expire at the end of September 2026.

That deadline is why the reception exists. NMDP is asking Congress to pass the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act — bipartisan bills introduced in both the House and the Senate — which would renew the program for another five years. You can read NMDP’s case for the program on its public-policy page. Funding decisions made in Washington shape how many patients the registry can reach.

Inviting your senators and representative to the June 3 reception puts the program in front of the people who vote on it. A reception is a chance for lawmakers to meet patients, donors, and the clinicians who do this work, and to hear why the deadline matters. Members of Congress pay closest attention to the issues their own constituents raise with them directly.

How to take action in 60 seconds

1. Open the form. Go to NMDP’s action page at nmdp.quorum.us/campaign/163714.
2. Enter your address. The form uses your ZIP code to route your message to both of your U.S. senators and your House representative automatically.
3. Send. The message invites your members of Congress to NMDP’s Capitol Hill reception. You can edit it or send it as written.

Every email counts. Members of Congress track how many constituents write in on an issue, and that volume is part of how they decide what to prioritize.

Join the registry, too

Emailing Congress and joining the registry are two halves of the same cause. One protects the federal infrastructure the search depends on; the other adds your name to the list of people a patient might match. If you are between 18 and 40, you can find your registry and order a free swab kit in about five minutes.

You may never be called. Most registered donors are not. But if your tissue type matches a patient searching right now, you could be the stranger who saves a life — the way Torsten was for Jada.

Take Action

Be Someone’s Torsten — from the Capitol

Your senators and representative work for you. Send them a 60-second email inviting them to NMDP’s Capitol Hill celebration on June 3. Then come back and find your registry.

Email Your Members of Congress · Find Your Registry