Giving Back: DKMS Is ‘Deleting’ Blood Cancer, One Donor at a Time
In 1990, Katharina Harf’s mother, Mechtild, was diagnosed with acute leukemia. She needed to find a stem cell donor, and none of her six siblings or other family members were a match. But there was a bigger problem. “Back then, there were only 3,000 donors on the German registry,” says Harf of the country where she was born and raised. “And basically, 3,000 donors is nothing if you want to find a donor.” This is how, in 1991, DKMS (or Deutsche Knochenmarkspenderdatei, if your German is good) got its start. Katharina’s father, millionaire Peter Harf, a brilliant businessman and longtime executive with the multinational beauty company Coty Inc ., began raising awareness of this dire need for stem cell donors in Germany and helping people register with the life-saving national bone marrow registry. A 14-year-old Katharina Harf was there in those early days, handing out flyers, appearing on TV shows and doing radio interviews alongside her sister. “It was hard, you know? It’s very impo...