Gift of Life Marrow Registry
Jay Feinberg Is Passionate About Saving Lives
"Cancer doesn’t stop for COVID-19 or anything else,” said Jay Feinberg, and neither does he.
The founder of the Gift of Life Marrow Registry in Boca Raton is celebrating his organization’s 30th anniversary this year and recently marked the 25th anniversary of the bone marrow transplant that saved his life.
In April 2019, the organization opened a 25,000-square-foot headquarters that houses the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Gift of Life – Be The Match Collection Center, the first in the world to operate an in-house stem cell donation facility.
“The goal was to take the donation process out of the hospital setting and put it in a setting that is comfortable for the donor,” said Feinberg.
Despite the pandemic, the center recently marked its 200th stem cell collection and Gift of Life’s registry has facilitated nearly 3,800 transplants for patients battling blood cancer and other life-threatening diseases.
“There are a lot of logistical challenges in making these donations happen, but one thing that remains consistent is that people want to help other people in need,” said Feinberg, who survived leukemia thanks to a stem cell donation.
The organization also launched the non-profit Gift of Life Center for Cell and Gene Therapy in October 2020, for which there are philanthropic naming opportunities available. A one-of-a-kind in the United States, the laboratory processes and freezes donor stem cells in an innovative BioBank making them available “off the shelf” for faster transplants.
It also plans to make cells available for the development of “living drugs” or immunotherapies that will help treat and cure more patients with life-threatening diseases than ever before.
“Our goal is to ensure that every patient has an equal opportunity to receive a transplant to save their lives,” said Feinberg, who is constantly looking for new and innovative ways to help patients in need, as well as the charitable funding to grow the donor registry.
Location: 5901 Broken Sound Parkway N.W., Ste. 600, Boca Raton, FL 33487, 561-982-2900; giftoflife.org
Specialties: Public Bone Marrow And Blood Stem Cell Registry; Center For Cell And Gene Therapy
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