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Sickle Cell Disease
About 1 in every 16,300 Hispanic babies is born with sickle cell disease.
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Research Feature
Sickle Cell: One gene, many faces, and a quest for a cure
In 2000, a mysterious disease was making 3-year-old Mercy Mendoza so ill that her grandmother bought a burial plot for her in the little town in Honduras where they lived. Swelling, pain, and immobility were fast eroding her health. Finally, a doctor who had been trained in the United States recognized her condition: It was sickle cell disease, an...
About 1 in every 16,300 Hispanic babies is born with sickle cell disease
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Research Feature
Células falciformes: un gen, muchas caras y la búsqueda de una cura
En el 2000, Mercy Mendoza, a los 3 años, languidecía con una enfermedad misteriosa. Su abuela, desesperanzada, compró un sitio donde enterrarla en el pueblito de Honduras donde vivían. La hinchazón, el dolor y la inmovilidad estaban erosionando rápidamente su salud. Finalmente, un médico que había estudiado en los Estados Unidos reconoció su...
Photograph of Jennelle Stephenson work with a nurse at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center.
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Research Feature
It Takes a Village: NHLBI Boosting Efforts to Educate Patients With Sickle Cell Disease About Treatments and Trials
When CBS’s 60 Minutes aired the compelling story of a Florida woman whose severe sickle cell disease symptoms were alleviated with a cutting edge gene therapy technique, people listened. A lot of them. The treatment happened at the National Institutes of Health, and since the showcasing of its dramatic success, NIH has been responding to scores of...
Dr. Oyebola in the lab.
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Research Feature
A fellow’s mission: Strengthen sickle cell research in Africa
A conversation with Dr. Kolapo Oyebola It is not lost on Kolapo Oyebola, Ph.D., that half the sickle cell disease cases worldwide can be found in his native Nigeria. This tragic fact, said the National Institutes of Health (NIH) postdoctoral fellow, has long been top of mind—and he is bent on doing something about it. Something big. He wants to...
Newborn blood spot (heel prick) test (the Guthrie' test). A physician performing the pinprick puncture in one heel of a newborn to collect their blood to screen for inborn errors of metabolism.
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Research Feature
Rapid Result Test On Track to Transform Sickle Cell Disease Screening for Millions
Soon after birth, a baby in the United States is tested for sickle cell disease, the often-devastating genetic blood disorder affecting more than 100,000 Americans and 20 million of people worldwide. If positive, that newborn typically begins a course of treatment that can greatly prolong life and help stave off complications of the disease. But in...
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Media Availability
NIH researcher presents encouraging results for gene therapy for severe sickle cell disease
WHAT: A scientist from the National Institutes of Health will present promising, early results from a human clinical trial testing a novel gene replacement therapy in people with severe sickle cell disease. Preliminary findings suggest that the approach has an acceptable level of safety and might help patients consistently produce normal red blood...