Jacob Davis, a 10-month-old boy from the Chicago area, is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant.

His doctors said that finding a suitable donor would be the best chance at curing the rare disease that Jacob was born with – adenosine deaminase deficiency (ADA).

NIU’s Center for Black Studies and Health Enhancement Services have teamed up to co-sponsor a Bone Marrow Donation Awareness Program at 8 p.m. today at the Center for Black Studies.

Tonight’s program will be a presentation on bone marrow donation and diseases.

“We want to bring to light [Jacob’s] condition,” said Van Amos, program coordinator for the Center for Black Studies.

Testing for potential bone marrow matches will take place between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday at the tables in front of the Holmes Student Center’s Blackhawk Cafeteria.

Potential donors must be between 18 and 60 years of age, and in generally good health. The 10-minute testing process involves completing a questionnaire, signing a consent form to be listed on the National Marrow Donor Program Registry and providing a blood sample.

ADA is an uncommon disorder that only 10 to 20 Americans are diagnosed with each year. Jacob is the only child in the area who was diagnosed with it.

The disease inhibits the production of adenosine deaminase, which is the enzyme responsible for breaking down a toxin in part of the immune system. Without this enzyme to break down the toxin, the toxin builds up within the immune system and destroys vital T cells and B cells that protect the body against infections.

So far, “Ray Ray”, as Jacob is called by his family, has not had any luck finding a donor among his two older brothers.

Steve Lux, a health educator at Health Enhancement Services, said the main goal of the program tonight is to educate people about bone marrow donation so that when they offer the testing services next week people will be willing to test.

“We want to raise awareness of bone marrow donation, particularly by minorities,” Lux said.

Ray Ray has a better chance of finding a donor from an African-American donor than from any other racial or ethnic group. The lack of African-American donors does not help his odds.

According to a Chicago Children’s Hospital news release, there are 2.5 million Caucasian volunteer potential donors in the NMDP registry, compared to 370,000 African Americans.

Ray Ray’s parents, Zina and Randy Berryhill Sr., currently care for their son at home. They have learned to administer the painful injections of PEG-ADA twice a week to Ray Ray. The drug supplies his body with the missing enzyme and the injections seem to be helping, his mother told reporters at a press conference.

However, doctors still say it will be best for Ray Ray to find a matching bone marrow donor to best cure his disease. They believe that the bi-weekly drugs used to keep ADA under control will be more costly over Jacob’s lifetime compared to the one-time surgery of a bone marrow transplant.

Although the surgery is risky, it has the best chance to cure Jacob.