VietNamNet Bridge - Joon, an 18-year-old Vietnamese-origin girl who currently lives in France with her adoptive parents, is a leukemia patient and needs an urgent donation of stem cells. The father of Joon’s friend – Prof. Siegfried Wenig - has emailed many people and organizations asking for help to save the girl.

Joon and her family.

Prof. Siegfried Wenig, working at the European Research Center of Atomic Physics (CERN) also sent an email to Prof. Pierre Darriulat, scientific advisor at the Vietnam - Auger Cosmic Ray Lab of the Hanoi Institute for Nuclear Science and Technology. He wrote: "A close friend of my daughter - Lauriane - was diagnosed with leukemia and she is in urgent need of a stem cell donator. Her situation is complicated because there is no information about her family in Vietnam. She was adopted in northern Vietnam. I really appreciate if you could turn this email to everyone you know... "

Receiving the email from Prof. Pierre Darriulat, Vietnamese Prof. Nguyen Van Tuan of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research (Australia) said that he was asking a number of friends and organizations that help leukemia patients in Europe to find ways to help Joon.

On June 8, the blog "Help Joon" was created by Joon’s family and friends. The blog is written in three languages: English, French and Vietnamese, with the content: "Search for the donor of stem cells." The manager of this blog is Joon’s adoptive father, Mr. Patrick Gremillet, a staff of the UN Development Program, working in Slovakia.

Patrick said he went to Vietnam in 1995 for a business trip. He accidentally saw baby Joon. "We saw her lovely smile for the first time at an obstetric hospital in Hai Phong when she was one month old, and then she became a member of our family," he recalled.

The abandoned baby was adopted by Pactrick and his wife and named Joon Gremillet-Nguyen. Since then she has grown up with her adoptive parents and her brother in many countries in the world such as Laos, Thailand, the U.S., Austria ...

Most recently, Joon’s family moved to France. Fluent in French and English, Joon graduated from the Ferney-Voltaire high school, with an honor degree in science. In September 2012 Joon began studying physics and natural sciences at the University of Geneva.

One day in late May, Joon felt a little tired and got a fever. A blood test revealed that Joon got acute lymphoblastic leukemia - positive Philadelphia chromosome. She was required to be hospitalized immediately in Geneva.

Joon had to stay in a sterile room and received immediate chemotherapy. The chemotherapy made her tired and painful. On July 5, Joon came back home after completion of the second treatment in one month.

Joon will turn 19 today, July 12.

According to doctors, Joon will have to experience two other chemotherapy treatments until late August. Then, the doctor will examine the results of the treatment process and make decisions for the next phase of treatment – stem cell transplant in September 2013.

According to Patrick, no one in his family have compatible cells. "The probability of compatibility between two individuals is very rare, only 1 in 1 million. To find a cell donator for Joon, we need to find someone who has the same genetic characteristics as her. The highest ability to find compatible cells for Joon is in the Asian community and Vietnam. However, in the international database, this community has the lowest number of voluntary donators... "

When the story about Joon was posted on http://teamjoon.net, it has received a lot of feedbacks. The story has been also transmitted on other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ ... in many other languages such as German, Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and Russian with the theme "Help Joon".

How to donate stem cells?

The donation of stem cells can help treat and cure blood diseases such as leukemia. In 2010, about 1,700 patients had stem cell transplant in France, of which 950 cases used stem cells registered in the international data.

Readers can find out more information on donating stem cells at http://teamjoon.net.

SGTT