This entry is еspecially for English speaking readers.

My name is Eli (Ilya ) Tovbeyn, I’m 33, and for the last 3 months I’m fighting leukemia. I have a more severe and deadly type of leukemia – AML M5 with genetic disorder called LFT3 IDT.
The only chance for me to survive is to undergo bone marrow transplantation. Best transplantations are performed from brother/sister, but I’m a single child to my parents. The other shot was to find a donor with a good match in bone marrow banks around the world. Unfortunately, the search was unsuccessful and no donor was found.
Third opion was to perform cord blood transplantation. This search was a bit more successful and some cord blood units were found, but with only 83% match at most. Performing cord blood transplantation on adults still considered being extremely risky, especially on such a big adult as myself, and especially with this quite low match.

So my current hope is that disease will not relapse before I find a donor.

That’s why I encourage people to become a potential bone marrow donor. The best way is to find your local bone marrow bank at http://www.bmdw.org/ and ask them to become a donor. In some countries, like US or Israel it’s quite easy. In some, like Russia it’s pretty difficult. But it’s your chance for saving someone’s life.
The best chance to find a donor for me is within Ashkenazi Jews population with roots from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Poland, and Lithuania. But it doesn’t mean that donor cannot be found among other populations.

Israel:
The easiest way to become a donor is to contact Ezer Mitsiyon www.ami.org.il. In most cases the blood test should be done in Petah Tikwa, but if you live far away from center, you can ask them to make a blood test at some place closer to you. For instance Haifa residents can do it in Horev Medical Center. In most cases it will cost you 140 shekels.
Jerusalem area residents can contact Hadasa Ein Karem – tissue typing lab in Sharet building. They are accepting public daily.

US:
Please visit www.marrow.org or www.giftoflife.org and follow their instructions.
I have written a short FAQ in Russian about bone marrow donation. I will translate it to English shortly and will post it in this blog.