April 12, 2015

“Your Average Bone Marrow Donor”: Michael Silverstein

By
gol

Michael (L) with Nicholas Hudson from Gift of Life (who has himself also donated)

margot

Margot, last September – we are so grateful to her bone marrow donor for his miraculous gift, which afforded our daughter a second chance at life

Michael Silverstein is one of the eight existing Campus Ambassadors on the Gift of Life’s Campus Ambassador Program.

Last year, he donated his bone marrow.

At the time, Michael wrote a blog which he called “Your Average Bone Marrow Donor” which in his words gives you “the play by play of the impactful, yet, simple process of donating bone marrow”. Michael’s blog outlines how he felt during the course of his donor experience and agreed to me sharing it with you here.

If you can spare a few minutes, I’d encourage you to read it and then share. It’s wonderful that Michael and others like him are willing to donate for the sake of those in need.

Oh, that there were more.

We don’t just need larger worldwide stem cell and bone marrow registries, we need more potential donors from ethnic minorities to join the registries & more potential donors who are mixed race.

If you are an American student and are interested in helping encourage others to register as potential stem cell / bone marrow donors during the course of the next academic year, then please note that applications for 2015-16 Campus Ambassadors are being invited !

Our partner, Gift of Life is recruiting 100 paid student ambassadors to run donor drives within their college communities throughout the USA. Training seminars will take place in August in Boca Raton, Florida.

For more information and to find out how to apply, please click here.

Thank you.

Team Margot

Together, saving lives

===

michael silversteinAbout Michael

Michael Silverstein is a senior Biomedical Engineering student at the University of Rochester. After donating bone marrow this past June, his experience with Gift of Life made it hard for him to resist an opportunity to continue to work with them on the quest for finding bone marrow donors.

Michael’s interest in stem cells also extends to the lab where he studies methods of proliferating red blood cell precursors; he also hopes to pursue a research project next year in Switzerland where he would design a method of culturing white blood cells to provide bone marrow recipients with a temporary immune system post-transplant, when they are susceptible to infection.

When not in the lab, Michael serves on the executive board of his fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, as well as MOVE, a sexual assault awareness group. However, no week is complete without practice for Park Lot Shuttle, a band in which he plays guitar for on-campus.

Husband to Vicki and father to Oscar (2007), Rufus (2008), Digby (2015), Humphrey (2017) & Margot (2012-2014)

Posted in: Journal