Vinay Chakravarathy has luekemia and needs to find a bone marrow transplant in the next 6 weeks. His best chance of finding a match is from a South Asian donor.

Myling Ta was recently diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a rare bone marrow disorder. She is Vietnamese and again, her best match would be from another Vietnamese, but there are very few registered Vietnamese donors.

And Michelle Maykin, who is half Chinese, half Vietnamese, was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) at the end of February. There is a 50% chance that she will be cured by chemo, but if not, she will need a bone marrow transplant. Her siblings are unfortunately not a match, so she did a preliminary search on the National Marrow Donor List and found 0 matches.

You can help by getting registered with the donor registry. It's really easy. I know, I did it. (And not just because Yul Kwon asked me to do it, though meeting him certainly made it a bit more exciting.) All they do it swab the inside of your mouth with a Q-tip. It's painless and takes a couple minutes (and most of that time is spent filling out a form.) Registering on the donor list does not mean you automatically have to donate your marrow. You'll only be contacted if you're a match. You could potentially save a life.

If you are all or part ethnic minority (Asian Pacific Islander, South Asian, Hispanic, African American, etc.), there is no fee to register and get tested. If not, the fee is $52.

You can even have a free kit delivered to your house, so you can swab yourself in the comfort of your own home and mail it back.

Here is a list of donor drives in the Bay Area and Vinay's site has lists of other drives. For more information on getting registered and the kit, contact the Asian American Donor Program at 1.800.59.DONOR or asamdonors [at] aadp.org