Meet Champion, Livy

At 7 years old, Livy was diagnosed with Severe Aplastic Anemia - a rare and serious condition in which the bone marrow stops producing enough new blood cells. Without a match on the national bone marrow registry, Livy qualified for a groundbreaking clinical trial at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital that allowed her mother to serve as her donor. During her transplant, Livy contracted a life-threatening virus. In a remarkable and innovative treatment, doctors used specially engineered blood cells from her mother, which were designed to fight the virus, and implanted them into Livy - a treatment that saved her life. After a year of rebuilding her immune system, Livy returned to school and resumed the activities she’d missed. Now four years post-transplant, she is thriving. She loves dancing, creating art, and performing in theater, with dreams of becoming an EMT or trauma surgeon, and one day performing on Broadway. Her zest for life continues to inspire everyone who knows her.