this week in sickle cell news July 6th to the 12th

By Sean Marshall
News from Trade Arabia Business News Information outlined that sickle cell daycare facilities were opened in Bahrain. On the 5th of July the county's main hospitals opened up daycare units to treat children and adults with sickle cell disease. This was all done in an attempt to “reduce waiting lines at the accident and emergency department of Salmaniya Medical Complex and prevent patients from being admitted overnight,”
Originally the health unit was only to cater to men but the article did explain that in the evening of the 5th changes were made. “the Health Ministry said yesterday women and children will continue to receive treatment at the accident and emergency department until further notice.”
The article did mention that this whole idea was based off of the recommendations of a ream of US experts that have had similar success with the Johns Hopkins Hospital Sickle Cell Infusion Center for Adults.
For more information the original article can be found here: http://www.tradearabia.com/news/HEAL_285606.html

News from bizjournal.com has reported that a Fred Hutch researcher gets $12.9M for 'bubble boy,' sickle-cell anemia work. The researcher is one Dr. Rainer Storb. There goal is to create current gene therapies that affect non lethal non cancerous blood disease like sickle cell disease.
In a quote Storb further outlined an issue that their work to deal with. “Current approaches at cell and gene therapy for lethal noncancerous diseases of the blood and immune systems have inherent toxicities that may affect patients for the rest of their lives,” Storb further explained that “the targeted therapies proposed under this grant aim to eliminate these toxicities."
The research being done will also look at “at ways blood stem cells can be transplanted to treat immune deficiencies and noncancerous blood diseases, such as sickle-cell anemia and Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, also known as "bubble-boy" disease.”
This however is just the beginning nothing has been official as a cure. This isn't to say that this won't work out but as of right now we are looking at step one in a long process. But every step forward in fighting sickle cell diseases is a good one.
Link to the original for more information can be found here: http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/health-care-inc/2015/07/fred-hutch-researcher-gets-12-9m-for-bubble-boy.html
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