This Week in Sickle cell news December 14th-20th

By Sean Marshall
It was announced this week in an article published on Medical Press' website that “an established drug for recurrent multiple myeloma might effectively be re purposed to improve the survival and day-to-day lives of patients with devastating sickle cell disease.”This was all according to “revealing new research by a Feinstein Institute for Medical Research scientist.”
For those who don't know myeloma is also known as plasma cell myeloma,myelomatosis, or Kahler's disease is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell normally responsible for producing antibodies

According to the article the study was by Lionel Blanc, PhD, assistant investigator at the Feinstein Institute. AS well as the fact that the report will be publicly available on the 17th of December. Meaning we can all see the details first hand. The data can be found in the journal Blood.
Other important information the article gave was that “Dr. Blanc's research, was the first to identify how the drug pomalidomide increases production of fetal hemoglobin, known to interfere with the so-called "sickling" of red blood cells implicated in sickle cell disease.”
Other important details included Illuminating “pomalidomide's mechanism of action offers proof of concept that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medication could potentially be used to treat SCD, representing better outcomes compared to current drug treatment for the 100,000 Americans with SCD, an inherited disorder causing poor oxygen delivery, organ damage and even death.”
This is all good news and we hope the Lionel Blanc study continues. The original article can be found here: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-12-multiple-myeloma-drug-revolutionize-treatment.html
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