Gift of Life is a non-profit organization that operates a bone marrow and blood stem cell registry and facilitates transplants between donors and those afflicted with blood cancers like leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma.
A common way to test donors is a painless cheek swab, but Gift of Life, in partnership with Labcorp and Mars-owned Wrigley’s Doublemint, has devised a tastier and more fun way to register donors with Hero Gum.
Hero Gum is a new kit that uses chewing gum to collect a viable, scientifically validated sample for Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) typing. Chewing the gum for as little as five minutes leaves DNA-rich cheek cells, which Labcorp then tests. The chewer then gets placed on a registry, the first step in potentially saving the life of someone with a blood cancer.
