Rob SissonsEast Midlands health correspondent
BBCEach time stem cells are sent to a new destination for transplant from Nottingham, staff proudly stick a pin on the location on a map on the wall.
Those at the Anthony Nolan Cell Collection Centre, based at Nottingham’s Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC), have been mapping its progress across the globe since it opened in July.
So far, 59 donors have given cells for transplant and 32 samples have gone to patients in the UK and the rest around the world.
Mike Smith, stem cell laboratory manager, said: “Across the globe, transplant recipients are being given that second chance.”
Mr Smith said the unit was having an increasing impact and cells had gone to more than 12 countries.
“So we’ve gone to America, Canada, down to South America and Buenos Aires, all the way across to Australia, which was one of our first donations, a lot in Europe and then in India.”
The Anthony Nolan charity said the centre would create 1,300 new donation slots a year, helping to tackle a “longstanding global shortage of cell collection facilities”.
Since the first donors were welcomed, Anthony Nolan said it had been getting the donations to transplant teams quicker.
Jordan, from London, was among the first to donate at the unit.
He said he was “proud to be helping a stranger”, and hoped the unit would be a “gamechanger” in getting cells to transplant recipients in a more timely way.
The centre has also collected cells for research into new treatments from 28 patients.
Fin,19, from Leicestershire, was one of the latest people to donate for that purpose just before Christmas.
He said: “I’m not great with needles, but I just had to look away and just pretend it wasn’t actually happening.
“Obviously, it’s a little bit strange to be hooked up to a machine. I’ve never really been to hospitals before, and it feels great that I’m doing something good.”
Anthony Nolan said the beauty of the new centre was that they have full control of when they can book donors in and improve the chances of the cells getting to the patient’s medical team at the time they wanted them. The aim was to transplant cells within 72 hours of collection.
The charity continues to recruit new potential donors and targets people aged between 16 and 30 to sign up to the Anthony Nolan register.
It has more than 900,000 potential donors currently on the list. Although people can only sign up before their 31st birthday, the charity allows cells to be donated up to the age of 61.
Most will never get the call to say they are a potential match for a patient, but those that do have the opportunity to potentially save a life.