Courtesy of Camel Athletics
As the holiday season draws near, the greatest gift for some may be the gift of life.
That’s what Michael Moran ‘26 provided for a 25-year-old Hodgkin Lymphoma patient on September 23-26. Through Gift of Life, a non-profit organization working to cure blood cancer through cellular therapy, many athletes at Conn opted to add their names to the marrow registry. During “Saxton’s Swab #2 Save Challenge” on campus, many of Moran’s lacrosse teammates signed up, but he was the only contributor who matched with a potential candidate. Shortly after Moran was told he was a match, he agreed to donate his stem cells.
In a September interview with Camel Athletics, Moran was a bit skeptical of the process at first.
“I wasn’t sure how intensive the process was going to be, but after speaking with the people at Gift of Life, they made it clear that there was nothing to worry about,” he said. “At the end of the day, I was given the opportunity to help somebody, so I felt it was my responsibility to do so.”
The donation process is intensive. Known as apheresis, blood is drawn from one arm, put through a filter to collect peripheral blood stem cells, and then reintroduced into the other arm. Preparation requires extensive physical examinations; the process itself can take four to six hours, and can produce fatigue in the individual donating the blood. But since its founding in 1991, Gift of Life has registered more than 525,000 donors and matched more than 40,000 of them. In 2001, the organization became the first registry to utilize bloodless testing at recruitment drives, helping to make the cheek-swab method ubiquitous.
“Today, transplantation of healthy stem cells donated by related and unrelated volunteers offers hope to many patients suffering from these sometimes deadly diseases,” the Gift of Life website says.
Moran is used to being in and around laboratories. Pursuing a major in physics, he works directly with Professor Daniel Maser in the Optical Frequency Comb Spectroscopy Lab, an experimental laboratory at Connecticut College used to design optical frequency combs used in spectroscopy. This summer, Moran also worked as a physics intern at the University of Colorado’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, working with complex technology to research electromagnetic waves.
Moran’s donation helped another person in need, but it also left a lasting impression on the entire Camel Athletics community. Every day, Conn’s athletes are doing amazing things in the classroom, on the field, and in their communities. For some, that means showing up for their team when it really matters. For others, that means giving the Gift of Life.
