Mission and History

View this site in other languages
Spanish | Vietnamese | Chinese | Korean
Bookmark and Share

Mission
The AADP is dedicated to helping save the lives of patients with life threatening blood diseases curable by a stem cell transplant.

History
In 1989, two Asian leukemia patients, Amanda Chiang, 9 months, and Judity Jang Berkoltz, 32, were in desperate need of bone marrow transplants. Both patients were unable to find a match within their own families. Turning to the National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP) Registry, the patients hoped to find unrelated marrow donors. With only 123 Asian donors listed on the National Registry, they were told that the prospects of finding compatible donors were virtually impossible.

Determined family and friends of the two patients made a statewide appeal to recruit more Asians onto the Registry. Despite the tremendous emotional and financial sacrifice which led to the successful recruitment of more than 2,000 Asians, no matches were found. However, the unfortunate deaths of these two people gave birth to the compelling mission of the Asian American Donor Program (AADP) and the hope of new life to others.

Since then, AADP has grown to an organization that outreaches to and encourages all ethnic minorities to join the National Marrow Donor Program Registry. In 2008, AADP expanded by launching its Latino Outreach Program.