Jay Feinberg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jay Feinberg Lh.D, hc | |
|---|---|
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| Born | |
| Alma mater | Dickinson College |
| Occupations | Bone Marrow Registry Founder and CEO |
Board member of | Gift of Life Marrow Registry |
Jay Feinberg (born August 1968 in New York City) is a long-term leukemia survivor, community organizer and founder and current CEO of the Gift of Life Marrow Registry.
Raised in West Orange, New Jersey,[1] Feinberg graduated in 1986 from Saddle River Day School[2] and in 1990 from Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA). He was a 22-year-old foreign-exchange analyst for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1991, just starting law school when he was diagnosed with leukemia and told that a bone marrow transplant was his only hope.[3] A matching donor was not found in Feinberg's immediate family. Knowing that tissue type is influenced by one's ethnic background - inherited like eye color, his friends and relatives widened their search to the unrelated population, focusing on increasing the representation of Ashkenazi Jews.[4]
Feinberg's plight, along with that of Mario Cooper, a graphic design artist, and Erskine Henderson, an attorney at Skadden Arps, was featured in a 1991 article in The New York Times.[1] Massive screenings were organized in Jewish communities throughout North America and Israel. In addition, screenings were held in Belarus (by Arnie Draiman and Bill Begal), Australia and South Africa.[5]
By 1995, more than 55,000 people had been tested.[6] Feinberg's condition was rapidly deteriorating and only a partial match had been found. A friend in Milwaukee organized one last drive and teenager Becky Faibisoff, a 16-year-old girl from Illinois,[3] was found to be a match. Feinberg received his successful transplant at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA.[7]
The Gift of Life Marrow Registry
Feinberg is the founder and CEO of the Gift of Life Marrow Registry[3] which seeks to increase ethnic diversity in the global donor pool to increase the chances patients will find a genetic match. The recruitment model Feinberg created for increasing the representation of Jewish donors in the registry during his own donor search has since been replicated to help increase representation of donors of African America, Hispanic, Asian and Native American backgrounds.[8]
Feinberg helped the organization to become a world leader in its field.[9]
World Marrow Donor Association
In 2024, Feinberg was elected President of the World Marrow Donor Association. He assumed office on January 1, 2025.
