Armenian specialists going to Sweden to take part in 28th European Immunogenetics and Histocompatibility Conference

28^th European Immunogenetics and Histocompatibility Conference organized by European Federation of Immunogenetics (EFI) is going to take place on June 25-28, 2014, in Stockholm, Sweden. “Armenian Bone Marrow Donor Registry” is going to represent Armenia at the conference.

Sevak Margaryan, executive director of the Registry, told NEWS.am Medicine that around 800 scientists from all over the world are going to take part at the conference, and they’ll discuss important issues of bone marrow transplantation and histocompatibility. Besides, special attention is expected to be paid to newly discovered antigens. As Sevak Avagian pointed out, scientists arount the world discover more and more of them on a daily basis, and specialists should be kept aware of the news to be able to diagnose the right antigen. That is one of the most important factors for success in finding a donor and completing the transplantation process.

The executive director of “Armenian Bone Marrow Donor Registry” also said that such conferences are very important, because, alongside with acquiring important knowledge and news, the members of the Registry can take the chance to meet the representatives of local Armenian diaspora to involve new donors into the Registry. As Sevak Avagyan explained, some diseases require stem cells transplantation, for which the donor and the patient have to be completely compatible. The problem is that Armenians have a very specific genotype, and in some cases for an Armenian patient, only another Armenian may come up to be a right donor.

“60% of our donors are from Armenia and Karabakh, and the rest are from the Diaspora. This program claims to be pan-Armenian, so all 10 millions of us should register to become potential donors for bone marrow transplantation to be able to help each other when required,” Sevak Avagyan said.

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