A new campaign invites people to chew over the idea of becoming stem cell donors—literally.
Gift of Life Marrow Registry this week launched the “Hero Gum” initiative, in which aspiring donors can chew a stick of gum, mail it to a lab for testing—in place of the typical cheek swab—and potentially be matched with a person in need of a transplant to treat blood cancers, immune system disorders or other diseases.
Testing giant Labcorp joined in on the campaign, as did the Wrigley’s Doublemint chewing gum brand.
A minute-long campaign video starts with a montage of chewed gum stuck to various surfaces, asking of the normally off-putting sight, “What if chewed gum could become something beautiful, something precious, something that could save lives?”
Jay Feinberg, Gift of Life’s founder and CEO, notes in the video that the gum-based approach removes the needles, swabs and even stress from typical sample collection, while Brian Caveney, Labcorp’s chief medical and scientific officer, adds, “It’s a fantastic way to be able to test quickly, painlessly and noninvasively.”
The campaign will host its official kickoff at the New York Mets’ home game at Citi Field in Queens on August 1.
Potential donors who won’t be in attendance at the baseball game can request their Hero Gum kit on the campaign’s website, where groups hosting stem cell donor recruitment drives can also send in requests to incorporate the minty fresh sample collection method into their events.
Labcorp isn’t alone in joining in on clever donor recruitment initiatives: Johnson & Johnson previously sponsored a star-studded “Give a Spit About Cancer” push for bone marrow donors; Abbott had a hand in unveiling a mixed-reality experience in 2023 to draw more young people to give blood; and, just last year, Sanofi, Takeda, CSL Behring and Thermo Fisher Scientific were among the sponsors of the biennial Transplant Games of America.