Cambridge will today play host to a major recruitment drive seeking to get people to join the stem cell donors register, with four venues around the city for people to sign up at.

Volunteers will be present across Cambridge throughout today, with people being asked to fill out a form and donate a saliva sample, placing them on the register until the age of 60.

The event, dubbed a ‘marrowthon’ by its organisers, coincides with the #MatchForLara campaign, which has attracted support from Stephen Fry and J. K. Rowling, as well as Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner.

After she was diagnosed with leukaemia in December 2015, 24-year-old Lara Casalotti discovered that finding the stem cell donor she needs would be very difficult on account of her mixed Chinese-Thai and Italian heritage.

The massive exposure of Lara’s campaign, which has managed to ‘go global’ in the space of a week, is the result of this difficulty, with even her own brother Sab – currently studying at Magdalene College – ruled out as a donor.

“I was shocked to find out there was only a one in four chance of me, as her brother, being a match for Lara”, he said.

The organisers of the Cambridge recruitment drive, Cambridge Marrow, have seen a huge spike in the number of people interested in both joining the register and helping others do the same.

The student-run society, which has been active since 2012, that normally runs three to four events a term, estimates that there are more people registered as attending today’s event than the last two years of events combined.

Cambridge Marrow President, Ben Morris told Varsity that they’ve “also had an incredible response for volunteers and people wanting to get involved – 35 new volunteers this week and counting. We’ve put on extra training session to get as many of them fully trained for the day.”

Morris also stressed that this event isn’t just about finding a potentially life-saving match for Lara and that this recruitment drive isn’t targeted solely at people with mixed European and Asian parentage.

“Even if someone who joins matches with someone else, they are giving that person a real chance of life which they might otherwise not have. That’s why we want everyone, not just particular groups to join.”

In response to people who may be daunted at the prospect of joining the register, Morris says that “donating stem cells is a lot like giving blood” and “no more painful than a hard day at the gym,” also pointing out that the odds of actually donating are also small.

Lara is currently undergoing intensive chemotherapy at University College Hospital, in London, but finding a matching stem cell donor remains her only hope of survival.