Parent's plea for more mixed race donors as daughter battles leukaemia

Lara, a global migration masters student, found out she had lukaemia in December Credit: match4Lara

The parents of a promising young student have launched a desperate plea for more mixed race donors to come forward after their daughter was diagnosed with leukaemia and given just months to find a donor.

Lara Casalotti, who is of mixed Thai and Italian heritage, is facing a race against time after discovering she has acute Myeloid Leukaemia, an aggressive form of blood cancer, last month and being told she would need a bone marrow transplant by April.

As her brother Sebi is not a match 24-year-old Lara, who is being treated at London's UCL hospital, is dependent on finding an unrelated donor but as only 3% of donors on the public stem cell registries are mixed race her chances of finding a match are greatly reduced.

Lara's brother Sebi was tested but unfortunately was not a genetic match to donate Credit: match4Lara

Speaking in a video appeal posted on the match4Lara website the masters student's mother Supanya explained the challenge the family are up against in order to help their daughter.

Matching for stem cell or bone marrow donors is worked out based on tissue type and the genes inherited from both parents, in order to be successful 9/10 or 10/10 of the genes of the donor and recipient need to match as the higher match the more likely the chance of it working.