Nankai University student Ayinuer Humatai and migrant worker Li Yong have never met.

But the 21-year-old social work major now shares a special bond with the 37-year-old laborer from Sichuan province.

Li Yong, a migrant worker from Sichuan province, donates his stem cell at the Beijing-based 307 Hospital of PLA yesterday. inset: Nankai University student Ayinuer Humatai, A Kazak girl from Xinjiang, gestures with a "victory" sign at the ward of a hospital in Tianjin on Wednesday.

 

Ayinuer, a Kazak girl from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region whose name means "moonlight", received a life-saving stem cell from Li in a transplant operation yesterday in Tianjin.

She was diagnosed with leukemia in September when she was about to graduate in one year. Doctors said only a stem cell transplant could save her.

Li turned out to be the perfect match.

He had signed up for the Chinese Marrow Donor Program (CMDP) registry in 2004 and never gave it another thought.

The call to donate came out of the blue, he told China Daily yesterday after a 3-hour-long donation in the Beijing-based 307 Hospital of PLA.

He remembered hearing of the case of "a young Kazak girl from Xinjiang with acute lymphoma cell leukemia. The only cure for her was to have a blood stem cell transplant ... Are you willing to donate?"