To Argentina and back, to San Diego and...

Saturday, July 22nd, 2017
Baltimore, Maryland

Comodoro Rivadavia

Eli just returned from Comodoro Rivadavia, a small city in southern Argentina. He spent 10 days down there participating in a trip sponsored by NASA. Dozens of professors and students from the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Virginia were sent down there in an attempt to observe an occultation involving 2014 MU69, a mysterious object in the Kuiper Belt (a collection of solar system leftovers that live out past Neptune). The goal was to collect as much information as possible about this object before the New Horizons spacecraft (famous for its flyby of Pluto in 2015) flies by on January 1st, 2019. If you are interested in this kind of stuff, you can learn more from NASA's own article: NASA’s New Horizons Team Strikes Gold in Argentina.

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​Naval Air Station North Island

As an aerospace engineer for the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), Ian is based at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in North Carolina, but has the opportunity for extended travel to other NAVAIR locations around the countries. The first of these opportunities materialized recently, sending Ian to Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego for four months. In advance of his trip, we had warned Ian of the strong allure of this inconceivably sunny and charming city, but he didn't quite believe us -- until he arrived, that is. Within 72 hours, he was hooked and already turning over in his mind the pros and cons of living out his life in southernmost California. We'll let you know if he ever returns. 

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Every transplant requires a donor, of course

I can't recall if I've discussed the donor selection process before. In case I haven't, here's a quick rundown.

Your DNA contains a set of neighboring genes known collectively as ​the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) complex. These genes control the production of tissue-compatibility proteins on the surface of most cells in your body. Because those proteins are effectively unique for each of us, the immune system will therefore identify as foreign (and worthy of destruction) any cells that carry an unrecognized version of the protein. In order to avoid having your body reject a transplant, the goal is to find a donor whose HLA genes match your HLA genes.

Currently, the standard of care in the bone marrow transplant community is to look for a 100% match for those genes, as this will absolutely minimize the chance of rejection. At Johns Hopkins, however, they have embraced a new protocol that makes use of donors that are a 50% match. This gives them access to a much larger pool of potential donors, which in turn allows them to consider other factors like the age, vitality and health history of the donor. As for the increased chance of rejection with a 50% match, that is mitigated through the use of special chemotherapy administered immediately after transplant.

My donor

Conveniently for us all, human genetics dictates that any biological child of mine will be a 50% match for me. So, we tested Nathan and Eli for donor compatibility. In practice, of course, this just confirmed that they really are my biological children. (I am told that unwelcome surprises sometime arise at this point in the donor selection process.) We also tested my (technically, half-) brothers Matthew and Max. Just yesterday, we found out that of these four, Nathan was selected as my optimal donor. He will need to travel to Johns Hopkins in a week or two for more extensive testing (essentially, to confirm that he's in good physical health) and then once again for the transplant itself (now scheduled for Tuesday, August 22nd).

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Pictures

Here are some photos that we've either taken or collected in the last week. ​

Tidbit

We learned this week that pot belly pigs love marshmallows (here's proof). If you'd like to know more about how we stumbled across this odd little fact, ask Alison.