The Anthony Nolan Trust provides lifesaving donors for patients in need of a bone marrow transplant. Since 1974 they have helped to give over 4,000 children and adults a new chance of life.

The Anthony Nolan Trust owes its existence to the incredible vision and determination of one woman – Shirley Nolan.

When Anthony was born, in 1971, with the extremely rare Wiscott Aldrich Syndrome, the only known cure was a bone marrow transplant from a compatible donor. The question – how to find that donor?

In 1971, there was no such thing as a bone marrow register.

There were no mechanisms or processes to analyse or record the variations in each person’s cell tissue which determine whether he or she could be a match.

In other words, finding a donor for Anthony was like looking for a needle in a haystack – but far worse. The haystack was spread all over the world – and there was no simple way to recognise the needle.

Shirley was shocked that a cure for Anthony could literally be in the house next door – but she, we, the medical profession, all of us – had no way of knowing.

So Shirley directed her energy towards establishing a register. She started working to create a system – a system which would analyse a person’s tissue type, record it in accessible form - and keep the details of each person, one by one, who declared themselves willing to donate bone marrow tissue in the event of a match.

Sadly, Anthony died in 1979 without a donor being found. Shirley passed away in 2002.

Shirley created the first register of bone marrow donors in the world.

Thanks to her vision, the Anthony Nolan Trust now operates one of the largest register of donors in the world.

As a direct result of that same vision, the World Marrow Donors Association now offers access to 9.2 million donors worldwide.