Students urged to sign up and save a life on campus this week

Students are being urged to sign up and save a life during a day-long recruitment drive being held on campus on Wednesday.

The Rik Basra Leukaemia Campaign (RBLC) is bringing its Pass It On Leicester drive to DMU Square Mile and challenging as many DMU students and staff as possible to join the UK’s Anthony Nolan stem cell register.

Anyone who joins the register could become a match and potentially save the life of someone suffering from blood cancers such as leukaemia who are desperately in need of a transplant.

Sign up stations will be set up on Mill Lane on Wednesday and there will be a series of talks to share the latest cancer research being done at DMU and people can hear first-hand from two people who did save the life of someone after joining the register.

Teacher Jane Theobald, from Market Harborough, joined the register in the 1970s but it was only a few years ago that her details were matched to a six year old boy in California who had leukaemia. The donation was a complete success and the two have since been in touch.

Jack  Grieves signed up in 2013 at a drive held in Regent College and went on to donate in May this year – saving the life of a complete stranger.

Rik Basra will talk about his own experiences battling leukaemia and his worldwide search for a donor, while DMU academics Dr Ketan Ruperalia and Dr Mhairi Morris will talk about their work to find cures for cancer.

Dr Morris said: "Events like 'Pass it on' are so important for many reasons. In the UK alone there were over 160,000 cancer-related deaths in 2012 - this accounted for over a quarter of all deaths in the UK. I think it's important to be reminded just exactly why we do what we do.

“Cancer's a clever little thing - it evolves and changes to escape our bodies' natural defences, and to resist chemotherapy - the more we understand about how it can do this, the sooner we'll find better, more specific therapies to treat and manage this disease."

Throughout September the city’s best known business and organisations have been supporting the Pass It On campaign by hosting fun events and recruitment drives across Leicestershire.

Wednesday is the grand finale of the campaign, which is the first time an event of this kind has been organised in a single city to recruit potential donors and raise awareness.

DMU Square Mile, which shares the skills of students and staff with the community, has worked with the RBLC twice before on two record-breaking recruitment drives.