Health & Fitness
Two Stem Cell Nurses Give the Ultimate Gift of Life
A shared dedication to saving lives took on a profound new meaning for two New Jersey nurses becoming stem cell donors to strangers in need
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Julie Zgola and Emily Coiro, though strangers to one another, are united by a deep-seated calling to care for patients at their most vulnerable. As nurses in the demanding field of bone marrow transplantation, they have dedicated their careers to guiding patients through the arduous journey of receiving life-saving stem cells. After years of working with Michele Donato, M.D., chief of the adult stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy program at John Theurer Cancer Center, they were inspired to join the National Marrow Donor Program registry. They completed the simple cheek swab and sent it in. This year, their roles unexpectedly shifted from caregiver to donor, giving them a rare and intimate understanding of the gift they had so often seen others receive.
Julie, an assistant nurse manager on the Brennan 6 Bone Marrow Transplant unit at Jersey Shore University Medical Center, was part of the inaugural team when the unit opened in 2022. Her experience in oncology prepared her for the complexities of stem cell transplants, but it was the courage of her first transplant patient that inspired her to join the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) registry with a simple cheek swab.
For Emily, a nurse practitioner in the blood and marrow transplant division at John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center, the path to oncology was deeply personal. Growing up, she witnessed her grandmother, Marlene, bravely battle both leukemia and lymphoma. This formative experience ignited her passion for helping those with blood cancer, leading her to become a stem cell transplant nurse in 2019. Motivated by her grandmother's journey, she too joined the NMDP registry.
Learn more about their selfless gift of donation and how it impacted the lives of others.
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