Asians in America : Magazine

Asian American Bone Marrow Donor Program Expands to Include Latinos

By Adrian Avila for New America Media | December 14, 2008

Auto shop owner Jorge Ochoa is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant.

Last June, Ochoa, 24, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and chronic myelogenous leukemia. When his family learned of his condition, they knew that finding a matching bone marrow donor would be a difficult task.

Latinos only account for 5.3 percent of total registered donors in California, as of September 2008. Searching within one's own ethnic group increases the probability of finding a matching donor because of the similarities that make up one's ethnicity.

Asian American Donor Program (AADP) Executive Director Carol Gillespie stressed the need for getting multi-ethnic and mixed-race heritage people to step forward and volunteer to become donors. "Finding a marrow match is like finding a needle in a haystack," Gillespie said.

Read the complete article at New American Media.

Energy Secretary Pick Argues for New Fuel Sources

By H. Josef Herbert for Associated Press | December 11, 2008

Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who is President-elect Barack Obama's choice for energy secretary, has been a vocal advocate for more research into alternative energy, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combat global warming.

Chu, a Chinese-American who currently is director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, has in recent years campaigned to bring together a cross-section of scientific disciplines to find ways to counter climate change. If action is not taken now to stop global warming, it may be too late, he argues.

Read the complete article at AP.