LONDON — A young woman is now racing against time to find a stem cell donor after she was diagnosed with blood cancer in December. Her case has been severely complicated by the fact that she's half Thai and half Italian. <br /> <br />Twenty-four-year-old Lara Casalotti, a mixed-raced woman recently diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, needs a stem cell donor with HLA markers that match hers, but as matching donors usually come from the same ethnic background, finding a match for her HLA genes has not been easy. <br /> <br />For a stem cell transplant to be successful, there must be an HLA match. <br /> <br />HLA are genes that encode for proteins found on all cells. The proteins act as markers that let the immune system know which cells belong to the body, and which don't. In order to determine a match, doctors review eight types of markers: two A markers, two Bs, two Cs, two called DRB1 and sometimes two called DQ. An adult donor must match at least six of the markers. <br /> <br />An individual inherits half of their HLA genes from their mother and the other half from their father. Therefore, siblings have a 25 percent chance of matching. Casalotti was told last week that her only brother is not a match. <br /> <br />Now the family is launching a worldwide appeal for more donors from a minority ethnic or a mixed-race background to not only find a donor for Lara, but also to help other blood cancer patients from a minority ethnic background.<br /><br />-------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Welcome to TomoNews, where we animate the most entertaining news on the internets. Come here for an animated look at viral headlines, US news, celebrity gossip, salacious scandals, dumb criminals and much more! Subscribe now for daily news animations that will knock your socks off.<br /><br />Visit our official website for all the latest, uncensored videos: http://us.tomonews.net<br />Check out our Android app: http://bit.ly/1rddhCj<br />Check out our iOS app: http://bit.ly/1gO3z1f<br /><br />Get top stories delivered to your inbox everyday: http://bit.ly/tomo-newsletter<br /><br />Stay connected with us here:<br />Facebook http://www.facebook.com/TomoNewsUS<br />Twitter @tomonewsus http://www.twitter.com/TomoNewsUS<br />Google+ http://plus.google.com/+TomoNewsUS/<br />Instagram @tomonewsus http://instagram.com/tomonewsus
