Isaack Powell, otherwise known as ‘Big Rig’ by his family was born in Brisbane Australia in 2002 to an Australian mother and an English father of Jamaican parentage. Isaack is a talented young man both academically and on the sports field. At the age of just 15 years old he was offered a scholarship by the Brisbane Roar soccer club. In 2019 he was selected to represent Australia in Brazil for the Under 17 Youth World Cup. That same year whilst in his last year of high school he made his debut for Brisbane Roar being the youngest ever player to be signed. Life was good. He also met his current girlfriend at that time. Around June 2021 he started to feel unwell and receive the devastating news that he had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. His and family’s world stopped. The family being very private people kept this quiet whilst Isaack receive chemotherapy and other treatments that led him to be in remission.

Isaack started back at university pursuing business studies and had resumed playing soccer at his childhood club at a high level again when a routine check-up revealed unbelievably that his cancer had returned and that his only option was a stem cell transplant.  Isaack immediately resumed chemotherapy whilst his family and friends set about finding a lifesaving donor for him. A friend had heard about Gift of Life Australia and contacted us to see whether we could assist.

Knowing that the best chance of a match was from someone of the same ethnic background, we reached out to the Jamaican community in Australia and to our Gift of Life Inc. colleagues in the USA who immediately commenced a swab drive in Florida – the state with the most people of Jamaican heritage – to try and find a match for Isaack. Unfortunately, a full match was not found in time and Izaack’s doctors suggested that his best chance was a stem cell transplant from his sister who was a half match.

The good news is that the transplant was successful and Isaac has resumed studying and is back on the soccer field.

“We were so surprised the Gift of Life Australia was able to reach out to their colleagues in the USA to find people of Jamaican heritage to join the global stem cell donor register. Whilst that was not the source of the match that saved Isaack we are very grateful for the support of Gift of Life and encourage every 18-35 year old to join the registry –  quick cheek swab could save a life”,  said Suzy Powell, Isaack’s mother.

Murray Foltyn, was diagnosed in 2022 with a rare blood cancer. This 41-year-old Sydney man, happily married with two young children, urgently needed a life-saving stem cell transplant. As there was no suitable DNA match on the global stem cell register, Murray’s family turned to Gift of Life Australia and the Strength to Give team at the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry (‘the Registry’)  in their attempt to try and find a match to save Murray’s life.

At this time DNA sampling for in Australia was only able to take place by taking blood samples from potential donors. Gift of Life Australia had been a lead participant in a trial project investigating the potential of using cheek swabs to collect DNA, instead of blood samples. We knew from this study that this was far superior collection method and had been lobbying the federal government for some years to approve the use of this method.

With the support of the Registry, Gift of Life Australia was given permission to conduct a swab drive in Sydney and Melbourne to try and find a match for Murray, a man of Jewish heritage. The Jewish community rallied and over 600 people so joined the Registry samples in Sydney and Melbourne and additional blood samples were collected in Perth and in Sydney.  The ability to collect a number of samples in a short period of time was a game changer.

At the same time Murray’s family spoke to their friends and family around the world who in turn mobilised their Jewish communities and in total around 2000 DNA samples were added to the global stem cell register. As it turned out Murray did find a match with an American man living in Russia. However the delay in finding a match and the process of extracting and transporting stem cells was prolonged and during that period of time Murray’s health suffered.

The transplant took place in Australia but has not achieved the desired outcome. We are hoping that a subsequent transplant restores Murrays health.

Murray‘s wife Claudia Milunsky commented as follows: ‘Our family is extremely grateful for all the support that we received from Gift of Life Australia, the Registry and the Jewish community. The sad reality was that the proportion of the population in Australia who are on the Registry is very low compared to other developed countries and this is particularly so for minority ethnic groups. This meant that we had to seek a match from elsewhere in the world. We will never know but I suspect the outcome for Murray would have been better were we able to find a local match in Australia. The delays in having to source an overseas match and go through the appropriate procedures to prepare, extract and freight the stem cells to Australia do not help. For that reason alone, we cannot overstate the importance of every eligible person in Australia aged 18-35 yrs joining the Registry here to give fellow Australians, or others around the world, the best chance of a life-saving match”.

We regularly hold donor drives with local businesses and sporting clubs to build the ABDMR registry. We are grateful to these organisations for their support.