A Manchester medical student who is spearheading a life-saving search for a bone marrow match for her father has signed more than 250 people to a donor register in three weeks.

Naomi Tomlinson, 23, from Cheadle, said a drive to identify a suitable transplant donor at Manchester Maccabi in Prestwich on Sunday was attended by 100 people. Through the Anthony Nolan Trust, she and her mother Sharon are hoping to find a genetic match for Alan Tomlinson, 55, who is fighting a rare form of lymphoma.

Local Jewish sporting and youth organisations have also become involved and further donor drives are planned in London and Manchester.

"Because the best matches can be found through people under 40, we are hoping to have an arrangement with Maccabi's London football league," Ms Tomlinson explained.

"In Salford we have made contact with a rabbi to help us search for donors in yeshivot and in the strictly Orthodox community." An appeal launched through the Just Giving website has raised £3,500 to pay for saliva samples taken in the search for a match, which cost £100 each to test.

Sharon Tomlinson said her husband was to begin a third round of chemotherapy at Manchester's Christie cancer hospital.