To possibly become Alan Cohen’s bone marrow match, please register at the Bone Marrow Drive at Temple Sinai, One Community Road, Marblehead, MA on Monday, December 7, from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m. Potential donors will have their cheek swabbed — it is quick and painless.

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Just a few months ago Alan Cohen was on the dance floor celebrating his nephew, Max Petersen’s, bar mitzvah at Temple B’nai Abraham. Today Max and Simon Petersen’s favorite uncle — always good for his dry wit, intelligence and challenging sports statistics — cannot see them, except at a distance. Alan Cohen has leukemia. On Thanksgiving, because he is immuno-compromised, he could only give them a warm smile as he stood in his driveway in Irvington, N.Y.

His time is short, and those who love or are concerned about him are desperately looking for someone whose bone marrow is a match for his, so that he may live and see his own twin daughters become bat mitzvah in March.

Cohen’s sister-in-law, Lisa Kosan of Beverly, is working with a host of volunteers to mount bone marrow drives on the North Shore. She and Bonnie Weiss of Salem so far have finalized an all-day drive on Monday, December 7 from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m. at Temple Sinai, One Community Road in Marblehead. As plans for other drives are arranged, the Journal will publicize the information online and in the print edition.

Cohen, 49, is a graduate of Mass. Institute of Technology and Harvard Business School. He and his wife, Judy (Kosan) Cohen have lived in Cambridge, Mass., and elsewhere in the northeast before settling in Westchester County, New York. Cohen, a partner for York Capital of Manhattan, had noticed off and on fatigue for several months before being diagnosed in mid-October with Acute Myeloblastic Leukemia.

Presently, he is in remission after a round of chemotherapy, said Lisa Kosan. The family was told that the leukemia would return.

“Right now his blood count is good, but the disease comes back. If he has to have a second round of chemo, his odds decrease dramatically. He has a few weeks, we hope, before it does,” Kosan said.

Because the odds of finding a bone marrow match are greater among the population of Ashkenazi Jews, Kosan and Weiss are contacting temples, Jewish agencies, Hillels and other Jewish institutions in their search for a match.

As Cohen is a sociable and popular man, friends, volunteers and family have been mounting drives in New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey, on campuses, in Toronto and Washington D.C. So far, no matches have been found. Of course, even if a match isn’t found for Cohen, when people register and have the inside of their cheek swabbed (no blood is taken) they are listed on the bone marrow registry and could help save the life of another person in need of life-giving marrow.

Potential donors may register without attending a drive, by logging onto http://www.giftoflife.org, click on Registry, request a kit, which will be mailed. The kit contains a swab, which donors will use to swab their cheek and mail back to the registry. Donors living outside of Massachusetts (where registering is free) should click on SAVEALAN to avoid the fee.

The Gift of Live website on Cohen states that names and regions that could lead to a match are:
• Cohen, Karofsky, Hirsch from the Pale of Settlement (Polish/Russian border)
• Kotek, Kotek-Cohen, Grosskopf, Mendelson from Lodz

The website notes that there are 145,117 registered donors; 31,053 searches run; and 2,081 bone marrow transplants.

Wikipedia defines acute myeloid leukemia (AML), also known as acute myelogenous leukemia, as a cancer of the myeloid line of blood cells, characterized by the rapid growth of abnormal white blood cells that accumulate in the bone marrow and interfere with the production of normal blood cells. AML is the most common acute leukemia affecting adults, and its incidence increases with age. Although AML is a relatively rare disease, accounting for approximately 1.2% of cancer deaths in the United States, its incidence is expected to increase as the population ages. . . As an acute leukemia, AML progresses rapidly and is typically fatal within weeks or months if left untreated.

Anyone wishing to help or needing more information, contact Lisa Kosan at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Lisa Kosan and Bonnie Weiss are board members of the Jewish Journal/Boston North.