Liyna Anwar, reformer of stem cell services, dies

Liyna Anwar, a podcast producer of South Asian descent whose struggle to find a stem cell donor to treat her cancer became the center of a social media campaign that aimed to make up for racial disparities in marrow and stem cell registries, died on March 26 in a hospital in Duarte, California. She was 30.

Her brother, Abbas Anwar, said the cause was complications of acute myeloid leukemia, the disease for which she had needed a stem cell transplant.

Stem cell and bone marrow transplants, critical treatments for blood cancers and other diseases, are far more likely to succeed when the recipient and donor are close genetic matches. When Anwar’s family sought a match for her, they found a dearth of potential minority donors registered. Among members of her family, her brother was the closest match, but still not an ideal donor for her.

A South Asian patient has about a 38% chance of finding a matching donor, considerably lower than white patients, who have about a 77% chance, said Kate McDermott of the nonprofit organization Be the Match, which manages the largest marrow registry in the world. Of 22 million registrants, she said, only 1% were of South Asian descent.

Anwar’s family set out to publicize her plight on social media to encourage people to join the registry. They started a Facebook page called Team Liyna and promoted the hashtag #swabforliyna on Twitter and Instagram.

They were surprised by how quickly their campaign spread, among both everyday users and celebrities of South Asian descent, like comedian Hasan Minhaj and writer-actress Mindy Kaling.

“I was recently so moved by a young woman, Liyna, and her personal struggle to find a blood stem cell transplant match,” Kaling wrote on Facebook.

She added, “I encourage everyone to join if you can!”

Anwar said that his family’s efforts led around 12,000 people to join the registry, and that as many as five people received potentially lifesaving transplants from donors.

Anwar was not one of them. In June 2019 she received a stem cell transplant from her brother, who was about a 50% match, but her leukemia returned after a few months.

Liyna Sereen Anwar was born on Sept. 21, 1989, in Mission Viejo, California, to Siddique and Sajida Anwar. Her father, an engineer, and her mother, a medical assistant, immigrated to the United States from India before she was born.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from UCLA in 2011. Working at a local newspaper and on a college radio station fostered her interest in journalism.

Anwar produced podcasts and radio content for outlets like NPR, The Los Angeles Times and StoryCorps to highlight the shortage of South Asian stem cell donors.