The story
DKMS was founded in Germany on 28 May 1991 by billionaire Peter Harf, an executive with Coty, Inc., and university professor Gerhard Ehninger, the hematologist who treated his first wife Mechtild Harf. Mechtild had been diagnosed with leukemia, and while her cancer initially responded to drugs, she eventually needed a hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSC) but none of her family members were a good match.
Harf founded DKMS to raise awareness of the need for donors in Germany and to help people to register with the German national bone marrow registry. He included the whole family, including their 14-year-old daughter Katharina, in the effort. Within a year, the number of registered donors in Germany increased from 3,000 to 68,000. He continued building the organization afterwards.
Katharina eventually moved to the United States to Harvard University, worked for Louis Vuitton in New York City for a time, then started an MBA at Columbia University; she dropped out and instead founded the US affiliate of DKMS with her father in 2004. The US affiliate also works to raise awareness of the need for donors, helps people register with the National Marrow Donor Program, and if needed will help pay for any health tests, medication and travel costs.
In 2014, DKMS began promoting 28 May as World Blood Cancer Day to help raise awareness. That year they also began offering grants to support scientists working on diagnosis or treatment of blood cancers, offering two people up to €80,000 per year for up to three years.
From Wikipedia’s article on DKMS, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5