To get your name on a bone marrow donor registry list takes just a couple drops of blood.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Registering to become a bone marrow donor just became as simple as tending to a paper cut.

Help Remedies, a small health care products company, has recently teamed up with DKMS, the world's largest bone marrow donor center, to release Help: I Want to Save a Life. The product contains 16 adhesive bandages and a bone marrow testing kit.

Now when people cut themselves and search for a bandage they can dab their blood with a cotton swab, place it in the pre-packaged envelope, and mail it into the lab. After mailing in the kit, people fill out a brief form online and are instantly added to the United States national bone marrow registry, called Be the Match.

"The magic of this idea is that it just feels like it's part of the process," said Nathan Frank, co-founder and creative director of Help Remedies. "You cut yourself, you dip it [the test] in blood. You don't step out of what you're doing physically or mentally."

According to the National Marrow Donor Program, more than 10,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with diseases every year, the only cure being a bone marrow transplant from an unrelated donor. Patients need donors who are a close genetic match, and ethnicity/heritage are key in making that match.

The Be the Match Registry has more than 9.5 million donors (300,000 of whom are associated with DKMS), but only one in 540 will be matched with a patient in need. Help Remedies and DKMS are hoping to improve those statistics.

Part of this product's appeal is that customers can purchase Help: I Want to Save a Life and satisfy their altruistic side without paying extra. Customers pay $4, the cost of the bandages.

"It is basically an add-on and people can have the benefit of the kit without paying extra," Frank said. "They shouldn't have to pay extra to do something good. We wanted to give this as a gift to people."

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Get a paper cut, save a life

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