By Bill Schlotter

	‘I felt like I had just won the lotto.’ – Michelle Chernikoff Anderson

What if you received a phone call one day and the person on the line offered you a chance to save someone’s life? What would you do?

Michelle Chernikoff Anderson, the director of research and education at UCSB’s Center on Police Practices and Community (COPPAC), got such a call in the fall of 1991. "I felt like I had just won the lotto," said Anderson, who was in law school at UC Davis at the time.

The caller told her that a 5-year-old girl with leukemia desperately needed a bone marrow transplant. A search of the registry of potential bone marrow donors maintained by the National Marrow Donor Program showed Anderson’s bone marrow to be a match. Would she agree to more tests?

She did, and when the tests confirmed the match, she agreed to donate. Today, Katie-May Berrecloth of Edmonton, Canada, the recipient of Anderson’s bone marrow, is a strong, cancer-free, 18-year-old looking forward to a long and happy life.

Anderson, who came to UCSB in 2002 to help COPPAC founder Howard Giles get the fledgling center off the ground, tells her story in the hope that others will agree to be tested, register as potential donors, and perhaps one day save lives.

"It is a hugely fulfilling experience that comes at very low cost and with no pain," she said. And there is great need.

According to the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), more than 70 life-threatening diseases are treatable with bone marrow transplantation or related blood stem cell transplantation. Each year, more than 30,000 Americans are diagnosed with such diseases. Of those in need, only 30 percent find a matched donor within their immediate families.

For information on becoming a bone marrow donor, contact the National Marrow Donor Program at 1-800-MARROW2 or at <www.nmdp.org>.

When Anderson donated marrow in 1992, the surgical procedure took only 17 minutes. However, she was at the hospital all day. She arrived early in the morning to be prepared for the procedure. After it was over, she was required to stay in the hospital until she had recovered from post-anesthesia nausea late that afternoon. The next day, she entertained guests from Japan. Ten days later, she started a new job in Switzerland.

Nowadays, the extraction often is even less invasive, accomplished via blood donation 50 to 60 percent of the time.

In the beginning, neither the patient nor the donor is aware of the other’s identity. Each has the option of keeping it that way. A donor might never know whether the transplant was a success.

But Anderson, Berrecloth, and her family chose to get to know each other. "Of course, you are taking a chance by doing so," Anderson said. "I had to prepare myself going in that this person might not survive."

Berrecloth did survive, and Anderson was with her each step of the way via e-mail and telephone. The two met in 1996 when they were brought together by a television show doing a segment on marrow donation.

They have continued to stay in touch. And this past summer, Anderson and her husband, Santos Gomez, brought Berrecloth to their home in Ventura for a weeklong visit as a high school graduation present.

Anderson said she and Berrecloth are "kind of like sisters".