Timeline

We're proud of our history. Learn more about key milestones in our progress against leukemia and other blood diseases.

1990:
Peter Harf begins search to find a donor for his wife, Mechtild, who had acute leukemia. With no family matches, he gathered family, friends and volunteers to conduct donor drives, successfully recruiting more than 68,000 marrow donors.

1991:
Peter Harf and Professor Dr. Gerhard Ehninger, Peter's late wife's physician, establish DKMS Deutsche Knochenmarkspenderdatei gGmbH (German Bone Marrow Donor Center in English). The goal: to build a donor center to help more leukemia patients worldwide find their match.

1992:
DKMS facilitates 7 marrow transplants.

1996:
DKMS is the first marrow donor center in the world to use peripheral stem cell extraction.

1998:
DKMS facilitates more than 1,000 marrow transplants.

2004:
DKMS facilitates more than 7,500 marrow transplants; more than 25% were for U.S. patients.

2005:
Peter Harf co-founds DKMS Americas with his daughter, Katharina Harf, in New York City to build the registry and raise awareness in the U.S.

Today:
Worldwide, DKMS donors have provided marrow and peripheral blood stem cells for more than 25,000 transplants. With over 2.7 million registered donors, DKMS is the world’s largest bone marrow donor center.