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About DKMS-BMST

DKMS BMST Foundation India is a non-profit organization dedicated to the fight against blood cancer and other blood disorders, such as thalassemia and aplastic anemia. Our aim is to improve the situation of patients suffering from blood cancer and other blood disorders in India and throughout the world, by raising awareness about blood stem cell transplantation and registering potential blood stem cell donors.

The fate of one person laid the foundation for a worldwide community committed to fighting blood cancer

Our story began with one family fighting to save someone they loved. When Mechtild Harf was told that the only treatment for her leukemia was a bone marrow transplant, she had no matching family members. At the time, there were only 3,000 potential stem cell donors on the German registry to provide a transplant. Confronted by the knowledge that his wife faced difficult odds in finding a matching donor, her husband Peter decided to apply his prolific business skills to the question of how to give his wife and patients like her the best chance at survival. The answer seemed clear: more unrelated donors meant better chances for all patients in need.

Mechtild Harf

Peter founded DKMS with his wife’s transplant physician, Gerhard Ehninger, on the 28th of May 1991 and in our first year of operations we managed to expand the registry from 3,000 donors to 68,000. Despite the Harf family’s best efforts, Mechtild ultimately did not survive. However, before she passed away she made Peter promise her that he would not stop fighting until every patient had a matching donor and a potential second chance at life.

Since then Peter and his daughter Katharina Harf, the Vice Chairwoman of the DKMS Foundation Board, have kept that promise. Motivated by the fate of their wife and mother, by 1995 Katharina and Peter had helped build DKMS into the world’s largest stem cell donor register and ever since we have worked tirelessly to fulfill our mission – to provide as many blood cancer patients as possible with a second chance at life.

Nandini with swab envelope
Article
Our Mission & Impact
To give as many blood cancer and blood disorder patients as possible, a second chance at life.
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Article
Meet our core team
DKMS-BMST is a joint venture of two reputed non-profit organisations: BMST (Bangalore Medical Services Trust) and DKMS, one of the largest international blood stem cell donor centres in the world.
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Shaping the future of our DKMS Group
With an extensive range of knowledge and experience, the Foundation Board and global executive team shape the future of our international DKMS Group.
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Together we can save more lives
There are many ways to get involved and support our mission.
You could be raising awareness, join the registry, hosting your own event, taking on a fundraising challenge, or anything in between.