An AML Appeal for Manish Bharadwaj (passed away on Nov 6, 2008)

Manish Bhardwaj (97 batch BITSian) was diagnosed in July 2008 with AML, a rare form of Leukemia and is in urgent need of bone marrow transplant. Manish completed his ME in E&I from BITS in 1997 and is currently working with Freescale Semiconductor in Austin, Texas.

Manish has two children – a five year old daughter and a one year old son. We have to help his family. You can find information on Manish on his website

We can help save Manish’s life through a bone marrow match which is a two-step process:

Step 1: Test: Very simple and absolutely no needles involved! A Q-tip is rubbed inside your cheek and sample is logged into a central database. I attended one such drive yesterday in Sunnyvale, CA and it took me less than 5 minutes.

Step 2: Donation: The process is as simple as a blood draw. In case you were lucky to be a match for Manish, donation will be a completely NON-SURGICAL process. The complete cost will be covered by Manish’s insurance. More information on the bone marrow blood draw is found here

You can help in one of four ways:

#1 Attend a bone marrow drive to give a tissue sample. Bone marrow drives for Manish are being held in Houston, Dallas and the Bay Area. See the website for current drives if you live in these areas http://lifeformanish.com/drives.php.

#2 Become a donor: You can also attend any local marrow drive on this link, based on your zip code: http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Join_the_Donor_Registry/Join_in_Person/index.html

#3 Conduct a bone marrow drive for Manish: Rally BITSians in your area to save the life of one of our community members. Please send me an email garg@bitsaa.org. Putting a drive together on one weekend is quite straightforward, but it can save his life and his family.

#4 Spread the word: Forward this blog to your network.

Thanks a lot.

Anupendra