sickle cell

Sickle cell gene therapies roll out slowly

5:00am September 19, 2024

It’s been almost a year since the Food and Drug Administration approved the first genetic treatments for sickle cell disease. So far, only a few patients have received the long-awaited treatments.

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Teonna Woolford, 31, in Owings Mills, Maryland on November 4, 2022. Woolford has sickle cell disease and has been unable to afford fertility preservation for years.

Health & Safety

For patients with sickle cell disease, fertility care is about reproductive justice

7:07am December 05, 2022

by Farah Yousry

The disease, which predominantly affects patients of color, can damage the body in ways that can make it difficult to have a child. But patients don't always have access to fertility care.

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Biochemist Jennifer Doudna, the subject of Walter Isaacson's new biography The Code Breaker, shared a Nobel prize in chemistry in 2020 for the part she played in developing the CRISPR gene editing technology.

CRISPR Scientist's Biography Explores Ethics Of Rewriting The Code Of Life

1:48pm March 08, 2021

by Terry Gross

The Code Breaker profiles Jennifer Doudna, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist key to the development of CRISPR, and examines the technology's exciting possibilities and need for oversight.

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Victoria Gray (second from left) with children Jamarius Wash, Jadasia Wash and Jaden Wash. Now that the gene-editing treatment has eased Gray's pain, she has been able be more active in her kids' lives and looks forward to the future. "This is really a li

1st Patients To Get CRISPR Gene-Editing Treatment Continue To Thrive

12:39pm December 15, 2020

by Rob Stein

As the first patient to receive an experimental treatment that relied on the gene-editing technique CRISPR continues to do well 17 months later, more patients seem to be benefiting, too.

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from local story: "Sickle cell pain has a mind of its own," said Anesha Barnes, who's had the disease since she was a baby. She says the longer she stays in a pain crisis, the harder it is to break out of it.

Effort To Control Opioids In An ER Leaves Some Sickle Cell Patients In Pain

4:29pm January 02, 2020

by Sam Whitehead

People with sickle cell disease aren't fueling the opioid crisis, research shows. Yet some ER doctors still treat patients seeking relief for agonizing sickle cell crises as potential addicts.

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Victoria Gray, who has sickle cell disease, volunteered for one of the most anticipated medical experiments in decades: the first attempt to use the gene-editing technique CRISPR to treat a genetic disorder in the United States.

A Young Mississippi Woman's Journey Through A Pioneering Gene-Editing Experiment

4:33pm December 25, 2019

by Rob Stein

NPR tells the exclusive, behind-the-scenes story of the first person with a genetic disorder to be treated in the United States with the revolutionary gene-editing technique CRISPR.

As part of a clinical trial to treat sickle cell disease, Victoria Gray (center) has vials of blood drawn by nurses Bonnie Carroll (left) and Kayla Jordan at TriStar Centennial Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.

Health & Safety

Gene-Edited 'Supercells' Make Progress In Fight Against Sickle Cell Disease

8:21am November 19, 2019

by Rob Stein

Researchers edited the DNA in bone marrow cells taken from a Mississippi woman with sickle cell disease to produce a treatment that could alleviate the excruciating effects of her inherited illness.

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Gray was diagnosed with sickle cell disease when she was an infant. She was considering a bone marrow transplant when she heard about the CRISPR study and jumped at the chance to volunteer.

In A 1st, Doctors In U.S. Use CRISPR Tool To Treat Patient With Genetic Disorder

10:13pm July 29, 2019

by Rob Stein

Victoria Gray, 34, of Forest, Miss., has sickle cell disease. She is the first patient ever to be publicly identified as being involved in a study testing the use of CRISPR for a genetic disease.

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Angela Saini, author of Superior: The Return of Race Science.

Is 'Race Science' Making A Comeback?

3:35pm July 10, 2019

We talked to Angela Saini, author of the new book Superior: The Return of Race Science, about how race isn't real (but you know ... still is) and how race science crept its way into the 21st century.

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CRISPR and other gene technology is exciting, but shouldn't be seen as a panacea for treating illness linked to genetic mutations, says science columnist and author Carl Zimmer. It's still early days for the clinical applications of research.

A Science Writer Explores The 'Perversions And Potential' Of Genetic Tests

3:07pm June 11, 2018

by Terry Gross

Carl Zimmer wondered what secrets lurked in his genetic code — so he decided to have his genome sequenced. He writes about the implications of the study of genetics in She Has Her Mother's Laugh.