Jeana Moore begins 356-mile walk for stem cell registry
At 73 years old, Jeana Moore embarked on a 45-day, 356-mile walking journey across Washington, British Columbia, and Vancouver Island to promote stem cell and bone marrow donor registration. Her campaign, designated as Steps to Marrow 5, began on September 7, and draws from her personal experience when her granddaughter, Jada Bascom, survived acute myeloid leukemia as an infant thanks to an unrelated stem cell donor living in Germany.
- Jeana Moore began a 356-mile walking tour on September 7 to promote stem cell and bone marrow donor registration.
- The effort stems from her granddaughter Jada’s recovery from acute myeloid leukemia following an unrelated transplant from a German donor.
- The Jada Bascom Foundation coordinates registration drives and assists with tissue-typing costs to eliminate financial barriers for prospective donors.
Clinical Background and the Search for an HLA Match
Jada Bascom was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia at one month old in 2007 after requiring a blood transfusion within hours of birth at Holy Family Hospital. When standard chemotherapy regimens failed to induce remission, attending physicians determined that a hematopoietic stem cell transplant offered her only viable chance of survival.
A successful transplant requires human leukocyte antigen (HLA) tissue markers to align closely between the patient and donor to mitigate graft-versus-host disease and transplant rejection. Initial searches within the United States registry yielded no matching tissue profile for the infant. The compatible donor was identified in Germany, where Torsten Huber had registered after reading a newspaper article more than a year prior to Jada’s birth.
Epidemiology of Global Stem Cell Registries
International registries play an essential role in sourcing compatible donors for patients requiring bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cell transplants. Germany maintains a registry containing more than 10.6 million registered donors, according to data highlighted by the Jada Bascom Foundation. Worldwide statistics indicate that nearly 40 percent of unrelated stem cell transplants involve a German donor, reflecting the high density of recruitment within European donor pools relative to the global population.
Jada received her successful stem cell transplant at seven months old. The family subsequently met Torsten Huber in person in New York City in January 2011.
Public Outreach and Foundation Operations
To address disparities in donor availability—particularly for patients who lack matching relatives or find no initial domestic registry match—Jeana and her daughter Issa founded the Jada Bascom Foundation as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Deer Park, Washington, in 2009. The organization operates registration drives, collaborates with international registries, and subsidizes tissue-typing costs to ensure financial constraints do not deter potential registrants.
Jeana Moore also serves as a volunteer ambassador for NMDP, the United States national registry. Her current 356-mile route covers the Pacific Northwest, concluding in Olympia on October 21. Traveling without a support vehicle, she displays QR codes on her pack and a necklace tag to facilitate immediate digital sign-ups from interested members of the public encountered along the trail.