National Marrow Donor Program
I helped create the National Marrow Donor Program in 1986 and continue to support this successful program today.
Congressman Bill Young, an internationally recognized leader in providing funding for biomedical research, was instrumental in the founding of the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) in 1986. The NMDP facilitates marrow and blood stem cell transplants by maintaining a national registry to match patients and marrow donors. Diseases treatable by bone marrow transplants include numerous forms of Leukemia, Hodgkin's Disease and Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Gaucher's disease, Sickle Cell Disease, and Neuroblastoma. Approximately 75% of the transplants facilitated by the NMDP were to treat some form of Leukemia.
Congressman Young has championed the NMDP since it was first authorized. Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, the National Program has been responsible for over 50,000 life-saving transplants and more than 10 million potential donors have been added to the national registry.
Congress, through public law in 2005, named this international life-saving program, which Congressman Young established with a small appropriation to the Navy in 1985, as the "C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program". The Department of Defense (DoD) has also honored Congressman Young by establishing the C.W. Bill Young Marrow Donor Center, which coordinates all the medical and logistical support for military personnel who volunteer as marrow donors.
In 2010, the President signed into law Congressman Young’s legislation to reauthorize the National Cord Blood Inventory and the National Bone Marrow and Cord Blood Program for another five years.
Each year, over 30,000 Americans are diagnosed with a disease for which a bone marrow or cord blood stem cell transplant is the only possible cure. The NMDP and the C.W. Bill Young DOD Marrow Donor Program are continually working to register new donors, in the hope that one day everyone afflicted with these diseases will be able to find a match.
- Become a donor or learn more about the National Marrow Donor Program.
- Visit the Bill Young DoD Marrow Donor Program.
- Learn more about Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide.
Congressman Young has also been the recipient of various awards throughout his years of public service. In 2009-2010 alone he received the following honors:
- Leukemia & Lymphoma Congressional Honors Award
- American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network “National Distinguished Advocacy Award”