October 9, 2011 / Photography News About two weeks ago Amit Gupta, founder of the photography site Photojojo and cofounder of Jelly, was diagnosed with acute leukemia and websites and Internet users around the world are joining hands to help Amit receive a bone marrow transfusion.





Since his diagnosis, calls for bone marrow donors have sprung up across the Internet. Despite that, his odds of finding a donor are slim. Amit is based in San Francisco, but his origins are from India. The USA national bone marrow registry contains 9.5 million records, yet the possibly of someone from South Asian descent like Amit will find match is only 1 in 20,000.





If you’re South Asian based in the USA, get a free test by mail. You rub your cheeks with a cotton swab and mail it back. After registering, you may be contacted by the Donor Program if you are a match. If you’re in NYC, you can go to this event on October 14. If you know any South Asians (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, or Sri Lanka), please point them to the links above.

Amit's colleague Seth Godin and his friend Michael Galpert have offered a combined $20,000 and respective blog coverage for the person who turns out to be a match for, and South Asian Marrow Association of Recruiters -- a non-profit donor recruitment group -- will cover the $100 per person cost of lab tests and database maintenance.