News archive 2008

KCL Marrow win Anthony Nolan Trust award

20 Nov 2008, PR 244/08

KCL Marrow, a student society which works with the Anthony Nolan Trust, holding clinics to enable people to join the bone marrow register and raising funds for their lifesaving activities, has been awarded the Anthony Nolan Trust award for 2007/08.

Members of KCL Marrow received The Anthony Nolan Trust (ANT) award in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the life-saving work of The Trust in the specialised area of donor recruitment, at a ceremony held in Manchester recently.

The award acknowledges the work undertaken by KCL Marrow in 2007/08 in raising its profile in the university, providing standardised training for more than 30 new counsellors and facilitating the ANT in holding public clinics across London and having a successful, smooth committee handover.

Duana Cook, KCL Marrow Co-ordinator, comments: ‘We feel really honoured to have been given this award. It’s great that the work of our volunteers is being recognised and we hope that it inspires more people to get involved with Marrow so we can further help the ANT and enable more students to join the bone marrow register.’

Volunteers’ hard work
Maissa Rosie, Joint KCL Marrow Co-ordinator, adds: ‘It is such a privilege to see how students at King’s are keen to help such a worthwhile cause. It is the understanding, compassion and enthusiasm of our fellow students that led us to sign up so many people to the register last year. It’s truly special to be part of a project that saves so many lives, and I’m so proud of all the people who we have signed up, and of all our volunteers’ hard work.’

The Anthony Nolan Trust manages one of the largest registers of bone marrow donors in existence, with more than 350,000 people on its books. At any one time it searches for donors for 7,000 patients worldwide.

KCL Marrow targets students as they make ideal donors; generally being young and healthy. Student populations also tend to be very ethnically diverse. KCL Marrow was formed in 2001 and since then has gone from strength to strength, last year recruiting almost 300 people onto the register and raising more than £4,000 for The Anthony Nolan Trust. They were awarded KCLSU Campaign group of the year for their work in 2007/2008 and were also recognised at the KCLSU Volunteering Awards last year.

Notes to editors

King’s College London
King’s College London is one of the top 25 universities in the world (Times Higher 2008) and the fourth oldest in England. A research-led university based in the heart of London, King’s has 19,700 students from more than 150 countries, and 5,400 employees. King’s has an outstanding reputation for providing world-class teaching and cutting-edge research. The College is in the top group of UK universities for research earnings and has an overall annual income of approximately £450 million. An investment of £500 million has been made in the redevelopment of its estate.

King’s has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, social sciences, the health sciences, natural sciences and engineering, and has played a major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA. It is the largest centre for the education of healthcare professionals in Europe and is home to five Medical Research Council Centres – a total unsurpassed by any other university.

The Anthony Nolan Trust
The Anthony Nolan Trust takes back lives from leukaemia by providing lifesaving donors for patients in need of a bone marrow transplant. Since 1974 they have helped to give more than 5,000 children and adults a new chance of life. www.anthonynolan.org.uk/

Further information
Melanie Gardner, Senior Public Relations Officer,
 Public Relations Department, King’s College London.
Tel: 020 7848 3073; email melanie.gardner@kcl.ac.uk

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This information is provided by the Public Relations Department
Tel: 020-7848 3202  Fax: 020-7848 3739  Email: pr@kcl.ac.uk