The Swedish registry for donors of blood stem cells

The history of the Tobias Registry

The Tobias Registry was established in 1992 by the family of Tobias Storch, who died when he was only 17 years old.

When Tobias was 13 years old, he developed aplastic anemia, a serious disease where the body stops producing blood. For four years, his relatives searched for a suitable donor, without success.

After Tobias passed away in 1991, the family decided to do something that could help others in the same situation. They established the Tobias Foundation – and their efforts led to Sweden getting its own registry for blood stem cells: the Tobias Registry.

Just a few months after the registry opened, the first match between a donor and a patient was found. Since then, the Tobias Registry has connected over 2000 donors with sick individuals who need blood stem cells to survive.

Today, there are over 270,000 individuals in the registry – but even more are needed to save more lives.

If you want to join, you need to be between 16 and 35 years old.

Tobias was clever and kind. He was a warm and humorous person. Such a person that we need in our world. He did right and had incredible courage.

Elisabeth Storch, Tobias's sister:

I wonder who he would have been today? Would he have had children? Children who would have been cousins to my girls. When I was 14 years old in 1987, he was diagnosed with severe aplastic anemia.

Four years later, he lost the battle against the illness and passed away on December 30, 1991. Since then, nothing has been the same and even though life goes on and we can laugh, someone is always missing. He was just a year younger and we did most things together. We shared friends, school, and activities. We shared life. In many ways, I still feel incomplete and alone.

In sorrow, it feels as though all meaning comes to an end. But life has other plans and continues. We learn to live a new kind of life. A life that, despite the loss, is good. I have been blessed with two amazing daughters, Hannah and Dinah. They are the meaning of life for me. I trained to be a nurse and then a midwife.

I work with life. I so wish I had been a match and could have given my little brother blood stem cells. We weren't a match. Every day, someone in Sweden falls ill who would need new blood stem cells to have a chance at getting well. Through the Tobias Registry, many have been able to receive a transplant and a new chance at life.

In my grief, it feels good that we have been able to help through the Tobias Registry. It makes Tobias's death a little less meaningless. I hope that people continue to sign up for the Tobias Registry so that we can save lives together and allow families to stay together.

Tobias Registry ambassador Erik Grönwall

When the artist Erik Grönwall was struck by acute leukemia in 2021, his life changed overnight. To survive, he needed a stem cell donation from a person he had never met before. An anonymous donor said yes – and gave Erik a new chance at life.

Erik Grönwall broke through as the winner of Idol 2009 and has since built a strong music career, both in Sweden and internationally. With his powerful voice and commanding stage presence, he has toured the world, both as a solo artist and as the frontman of bands like H.E.A.T and Skid Row. But behind the artist persona is also a person who knows how fragile life can be – and how crucial other people’s willingness to help can become.

As an ambassador for the Tobias Registry, Erik openly shares his own journey, out of gratitude and to show how big a difference a single registration can make. His commitment is rooted in a simple yet powerful insight: that someone, somewhere, can be the difference between life and death.