Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), the city-based premier business school, has lend a helping hand to blood cancer patients. On Wednesday, 52 persons, including students and visiting faculties of the IIM-A, registered themselves with a cancer registry so that if a patient needs genetically matched blood stem cell, he or she can get it easily.

Dr Abhik Biswas, coordinator of 'Panacea'— the healthcare club of IIM-A — said that a private blood stem cell registry had approached them through alumni and they have decided to hold a session at the institute to spread awareness about blood cancer.

"The event focused on blood cancer awareness in which 52 persons, including postgraduate programme (PGP) students, doctoral students and also students from armed forces programme, have registered themselves as donors," Biswas said.

In future also, the IIM-A will hold cancer awareness drive. "In all likelihood, the cancer awareness drive will be conducted in November or December," he said.

The theme of the event was Rajee, a girl aged around 32, who was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) — cancer of white blood cells — at a very young age of 12. Since then, Rajee has been fighting against the cancer and has set an example of how someone could lead a normal life as a great human being.

Gayathri Venugopal, representative from the cancer registry, said that swab of the students have been taken which will be kept in the data base so that in case of any need, blood stem cell donors can be contacted.

"IIM-A has extended help because of one young woman Rajee, who has been looking for a swab match. We have been conducting sessions at various institutes and someone from her network helped in connecting with the IIM-A community. The moment IIM-A came to know about the cause, they decided to help us in conducting the session and several persons from the institute got themselves registered," Venugopal said.