Luminex Corporation Joins Forces With the National Marrow Donor Program - Be The Match®

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Luminex Corporation (NASDAQ: LMNX) announced today that it has joined forces with the National Marrow Donor Program – Be The Match to raise awareness of the need for additional donors to increase the chances of finding a match for the growing number of patients awaiting life-saving bone marrow transplants.  Recently, more than 100 Luminex employees joined the National Marrow Donor Registry in an effort to assist patients nationwide. Luminex will also be the Title Sponsor for the 17th Annual Marrow Ambassadors Golf Tournament  to be held on October 10, 2011 at the Cimarron Hills Golf and Country Club in Georgetown, Texas.

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With advances in hematopoietic cell transplantation making bone marrow transplants better tolerated and more effective at treating underlying diseases, patient selection has expanded dramatically.  The largest growth area has been in older patients or those with co-morbidities transplanted using reduced-intensity conditioning regimens.  Between 2006 and 2010, the number of National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) transplants for patients older than 50 has more than doubled (a 111 percent increase).  Two other reasons for expanded patient selection include the use of transplants to treat some types of solid tumors, and a growing trend to transplant patients earlier in their disease course to improve outcomes.  Research shows that patients transplanted earlier in the course of their disease have approximately half the mortality risk as patients transplanted in advanced stages.   Unrelated transplant outcomes have also improved due to a number of factors including changes in clinical practice and better understanding of human leukocyte antigen typing and matching.  

"Bone marrow transplantation is among the greatest success stories in cancer treatment, boosting survival rates from nearly zero to upwards of 85 percent for some blood cancers," said Steele Zinser, Austin transplant recipient, Marrow Ambassador and  Founder of the annual golf tournament. "I was fortunate to find a match 17 years ago and hope for the same for all patients awaiting transplant.  Adding more donors to the registry provides hope for all.  We are extremely grateful to everyone at Luminex for their support in becoming donors, supporting our annual golf tournament to raise additional funds for tissue-typing, and for raising awareness of this important cause."

Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA) found in the blood, are the primary source of immuno-rejection during transplant. This class of markers is characterized by numerous genetic mutations, many of which directly affect the immune response during transplantation.  Luminex xMAP® Technology  allows high-resolution genotyping of up to 100 unique alleles within a single sample volume prior to a patient undergoing transplant surgery. The same xMAP platform can then be used to perform immunoassays that test for an antibody response in the patient post-surgery. Laboratories around the world currently perform HLA testing using Luminex xMAP technology to match donors and transplant recipients.

"Luminex is proud to partner with the National Marrow Donor Program to raise awareness for the need to expand the current donor registry, and to be the title sponsor of this year's golf tournament," said Patrick Balthrop, president and CEO of Luminex. "I am equally proud of all of the Luminex employees who joined the registry to give hope to patients in need of bone marrow transplants at our recent Be The Match event. Opportunities like these allow all of us to not only fulfill our mission to improve the quality of life for patients around the world, but to potentially save lives."

The 17th Annual Marrow Ambassadors Golf Tournament benefits the Marrow Donor Programs of Central and South Texas by providing tissue-typing funds for donors, making matches possible for patients in need of life-saving bone marrow transplants.  Since 1994, Founder Steele Zinser and the Bone Marrow Ambassadors have raised funds for hundreds of Central Texas donors through this annual event.  This year's tournament will be held at Cimarron Hills Golf and Country Club, Georgetown, Texas on October 10, 2011.  

To register for the golf tournament please visit http://www.southtexasblood.org/BeTheMatch.asp.  For more information about joining the registry, becoming a donor and saving a life, please visit http://www.marrow.org/Join/Join_the_Registry.aspx or call Aracely Calzadias, Marrow Recruitment Consultant for the National Marrow Donor Program – Be The Match in Austin at (512) 206-1331.

About Luminex Corporation

Luminex is committed to applying its passion for innovation to advancing healthcare and research worldwide. We are transforming global healthcare and life-science research through the development, manufacturing, and marketing of proprietary instruments and assays utilizing our xMAP open-architecture, multi-analyte platform and our MultiCode real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and multiplex PCR-based technologies that deliver cost-effective and rapid results to clinicians and researchers. Our technology is commercially available worldwide and in use in leading clinical laboratories as well as major pharmaceutical, diagnostic, biotechnology and life-science companies. We are meeting the needs of customers in markets as diverse as clinical diagnostics, pharmaceutical drug discovery, biomedical research including genomic and proteomic research, personalized medicine, bio-defense research and food safety. For further information on Luminex Corporation and the latest advances in multiplexing using award winning technology please visit our website at http://www.luminexcorp.com.

SOURCE Luminex Corporation