Dr takes strides to aid Olympic hopeful

New Haven (WTNH) - A cancer researcher at Yale is on a mission to find cord blood donors for patients including an Olympic hopeful determined to beat his cancer.

"It's been my dream to be in the Olympics since I was six-years-old," said Seun Adebiyi. "I was a competitive swimmer for 16-years; I represented Nigeria in several international competitions but I missed the Olympics twice."

Dreaming big is something Yale Law Grad Adebiyi does best. And when injury ended his swimming career, he chose a new one -- skeleton.

"It involves a 30 meter sprint and then you lie on your stomach. And we thought, I can do that," said Adebiyi.

He picked up the sport quickly and things were on track to be the first Nigerian to compete in the winter Olympics.

That was, until a week after his 26th birthday and his graduation from Yale Law.

"They found I had two cancers -- not just Lymphoma, but a rare form of cancer known as Stem Cell Leukemia. And this one can't be cured by chemotherapy. I needed a transplant basically," said Adebiyi.

A perfect bone marrow or cord blood match has been difficult to get. Adebiyi said less than 17 percent of minorities actually receive one.

Enter cancer researcher Dr. Ted Collins.

"The only way you can make this process work, and can learn, is to be able to define better the patients that you're working with," said Dr. Collins.

Dr. Collins said the long term solution for solving these shortages in the bone marrow registry comes down to two things: education and advocacy.

News Channel 8 interviewed Dr. Collins' daughter Natasha last year; months before she died of complications from an unmatched bone marrow donation.

His organization " Become my Hero " aims to prevent deaths like hers.

"The most important component, the bone marrow, the replacing those bad stem cells has nothing to do with science. You can't do that in a test tube. It has to be done with a person," Dr. Collins said.

"He's working to save my life," said Adebiyi. "There's no way I can express my gratitude adequately."

[Accept with maybe a gold medal]

Adebiyi will undergo a cord blood transplant in the next few months; it's a partial match but he's hopeful.

In the meantime he aims to start a bone marrow registery in his native Nigeria. It would be the only one of its kind in Africa.