KINGSTON — There are few things more heroic than offering up a part of oneself so that someone else may be cured. For those with such life-saving aspirations, Kingston Junior High teacher Kyle Nielsen is spearheading a bone marrow drive May 17 that aims to add people to the National Marrow Donor Program.

At the beginning of the year, Nielsen’s son, Bjorn, 24, was diagnosed with a cancer called multiple myeloma, which attacks the plasma cells inside one’s bone marrow, decreasing the body’s ability to produce antibodies and drastically decreasing the effectiveness of one’s immune system.

“It basically eats away at the bones,” Kyle said, describing her son’s disease. “There’s no room for red blood cells in his bone marrow because the cancer has taken over.”

It is unclear to doctors how Bjorn fell victim to this disease given his age. Less than 1 percent of people who have multiple myeloma are under the age 40.

That age factor is a double-edged sword as the Nielsen family hopes Bjorn’s youth will be able to help him combat the disease, but doctors are unsure of how a bone marrow transplant will work, considering most data available is for older persons.

But before Bjorn can even undergo a transplant, doctors must first find a matching Human Leukocyte Antigen blood type donor for him.

At first Kyle figured the transplant would have come from within their family, but when there were no kin matches, she learned of the NMDP registry.

“I had always assumed that it was family oriented, then when we found out that none of our family was match for Bjorn, we found out about the bank and thought if we can’t help him maybe we could help other people,” Kyle said about her decision to initiate a local bone marrow drive. “We want this to be about the needs of the many, not just (our) one.”

From 1-6 p.m. May 17 at the North Kitsap School District board room on the hill off of Caldart Avenue, Puget Sound Blood Center officials will be hosting a bone marrow drive to add to the NMDP registry and hopefully its success statistics, said Puget Sound Blood Center bone marrow supervisor Andrea Marsden.

At the drive, donors’ DNA will be taken by cheek swab, sent to a Minneapolis lab and tested to determine HLA typing. That information will then be uploaded into the NMDP registry where donors are matched with patients and through which transplants are orchestrated.

“Even though when you join the registry, it’s just a cheek swab, there will be needles involved in the future,” Marsden cautioned. “If you are afraid of needles don’t join.”

There is also $35 fee donors must pay for the HLA testing, but only for those of Caucasian descent. Minorities’ tests are covered completely by the government.

“The registry itself is (comprised of) about 75 percent Caucasian and 25 percent minority,” Marsden noted. “The federal government is aware and their push is to boost the minority registration so they have agreed to cover HLA typing cost for minority (people), and to some extent they offset the cost for Caucasians.”

No matter a person’s race, the more donors who are available through the registry, the more likely it is that patients on the other end will find the blood and HLA type match that could produce a cure.

“I didn’t realize that they use bone marrow (transplants) for a number of different things including aplastic anemia and leukemia, sometimes lymphoma and also multiple myeloma,” Nielsen said.

The NMDP is the hub of a worldwide network of more than 500 leading medical facilities in marrow and blood cell transplantation.

Through that network, the NMDP connects patients and donors on an average of 200 marrow or blood cell transplants each month and has helped give more than 20,000 patients a second chance at life, according to the group’s Web site.