Rice alum needs a hero
Houston doctor Anh Reiss and family search for stem cell donor to save her life

BY MIKE WILLIAMS
Rice News staff

Anh Nguyen Reiss, Sid Richardson ’89, needs someone to help save her life, and that person could be you.

The Rice alumna, an obstetrician and gynecologist based at Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital in Houston, needs a stem cell transplant to survive. She was diagnosed in February with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a form of leukemia, and her family and friends are going all out in the search for a donor match.

	Alumna Anh Nguyen Reiss, an obstetrician and gynecologist based at Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital in Houston, needs a stem-cell transplant to survive.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever had anything you had to hold inside, but it is quite a burden,” said Reiss, who told her story in a recent Houston Chronicle feature. “If anything, (the article) has made it easier. People feel like they can talk to me because I’ve gone public. They can say, ‘How are you feeling?’ It’s such a relief.”

She hopes talking about her battle will help with the search, which has proved to be more difficult than anticipated because none of the 15,000 people of Vietnamese heritage registered with the National Marrow Donor Program is a match, nor are any of her five siblings.

Finding a donor is a matter of numbers, said her husband, Josh Reiss, Sid Richardson ’89, a lawyer who met his wife at Rice while both were freshmen. The couple’s family and friends are raising funds to organize what Reiss characterized as “the largest registration drive in the history of mankind.”

That drive will happen in Carthage, Mo., in August, when as many as 60,000 Vietnamese-American Catholics gather for the city’s Marian Days, an annual celebration hosted by the Congregation of the Mother Co-Redemptrix, a religious order dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

“The church has graciously given us permission to conduct a donor drive,” Josh said, “and we’re going to try to register as many people as we can during those three or four days. We are in search of a miracle.”

The family is also reaching out to potential donors through a series of registration drives in and around Houston (see the list here) in the weeks to come. Registration at drives conducted by the family will be free, painless and involve little more than filling out some forms and swabbing the inside of cheeks. The whole process will take 10 to 15 minutes.

“For Anh’s chances for a match, Asian donors are good and Vietnamese in particular are better. However, everyone is a possible match and should consider registering. The more people who participate, the more lives will be saved. Many patients are waiting,” Josh said.

The family is working to raise $100,000 this summer to pay for costs related to these efforts and has posted details on making donations through PayPal or by other means at the Team Anh Web site.

“If you saw Anh today, you wouldn’t know she was sick,” Josh said. His wife continues to work full time and delivers as many as 30 babies a month, among her other duties, he said.

(From left) Josh and Anh Reiss have two children, Alexandra and Aaron. The couple met while at Rice University and have been married for 20 years.

But without the stem-cell treatment, the MDS discovered in a routine checkup will continue to challenge her body’s immune system. The disease causes her bone marrow to produce ineffective red and white blood cells and platelets. Approximately a third of MDS victims progress to acute myeloid leukemia, but even if they don’t, they may suffer internal bleeding and hemorrhaging. Anh has been undergoing chemotherapy and frequent blood transfusions to stabilize her, but the longer she has to wait for a stem-cell transplant, the more dangerous her condition becomes.

Anh, 41, and Josh, 42, are pleased that so many are stepping up to help in their fight. Josh said Chloe Dao, the owner of Lot 8 in the Rice Village and winner of the fashion reality show “Project Runway,” has pledged her support. Memorial Hermann Southwest and medical staff are holding donor drives at all Memorial Hermann locations, and Josh’s legal colleagues are helping as well.

The Reiss family is certain to be grateful for any help from the Rice community. In fact, they were deeply touched when President David Leebron, after reading about their plight in the Chronicle, asked Vice President for Public Affairs Linda Thrane to see what Rice could do to help. This story is intended to help make more people aware of the need for stem-cell donors, particularly for Anh.

“No matter what, just the fact that people are thinking about us and reaching out really gives us a lot of strength,” she said.

“We’re very proud Rice alums and often joke that we owe our marriage to the Rice Admission Office,” said Josh, who works in the Harris County District Attorney’s Office helping the victims of domestic violence. Anh, a Vietnamese refugee who moved with her family to the United States in 1975, earned a full scholarship at Rice.

The couple moved to New York City to further their educations after graduation but returned to settle in Houston. They both love the neighborhood around Rice University. The parents of Alexandra, 18, and Aaron, 14, they are also dedicated donors to Rice and season-ticket holders for Owls baseball and basketball.

Anh said Rice inspired her to investigate many possible careers, and it was here, as an economics major, that she took a chance on finance. “I went to New York and studied to be a stock broker with Shearson Lehman. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like sales,” she said. “Then I went to work at Citicorp as a credit analyst, and I didn’t like that either.”

Her childhood desire to be a doctor finally took hold. “I felt like I had a calling to be a doctor,” said Anh, who earned her medical degree at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center. Working at the Texas Medical Center while a Rice student helped give her the confidence to pursue a new path, she said.

“Rice has meant the world to me, because without it I probably would not be the person I am today,” Anh said. “Rice opened my whole world.”

For details about Anh’s struggle and what you can do to help, visit www.teamanh.com.