this week in sickle cell news june 29th to july 5th

By Sean Marshall
Good news for those with sickle cell in Jamaica. The good news is in reference to news reported by the Jamaican Observer. Specifically comments made by the Health Minister Dr. Fenton. He has found specifically “research done by the Sickle Cell Unit, showing a downward trend in mortality by 10 years of age in children diagnosed with sickle cell disease at the time of birth.”

It was with the High Performance Liquid Chromatographer or the HPLC for short. The device was purchased from Brazil in an attempt to strengthen the sickle cell program in Jamaica. The device is intended to “facilitates screening at birth, which allows for early detection of the sickle cell trait.” The reason this is implemented according to the article was to reduce the number of child and mother mortality rates. In an attempt to stop deaths due to complications or misdiagnosis of sickle cell.
Here is a link to the original article: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/latestnews/Brighter-future-for-children-born-with-sickle-cell-disease---Ferguson

Other news this week featured genome editing the article was posted on genomweb.com. It mainly focused in CRISPR-Cas9 a genetic editing therapy. Although many articles tend to lean towards the miracles of genetic therapies there were some warnings that these processes 'wont be available for years, if at all.”

The whole idea behind gene therapies is to address the question “What if you could go right to the root cause of that disease and repair the broken gene?” This is what the article said is why the scientific community is so excited they are close to turning this what is into a reality. The article stressed something that we will soon be at the point but “There are, though, a few stumbling blocks.” The good news is that the university of California are already attempting to put the steps in order when gene therapies are perfected. It was explained that “the first treatments will likely involve taking a sample of a patient's blood, treating the blood cells, and returning them,”

Lastly it was mentioned that in a quote by Jacob Corn, managing director of the Innovative Genomics Initiative that “in 10, 15 years, our relationship with genetic disease will be very different from today." This was mainly to address the fact that this article may not be the most positive but it is looking to the future while dealing with the problems of the present.
The full original article can be found here: https://www.genomeweb.com/scan/crispr-excitement
If there are any comments questions or concerns email us at thesickleinme@gmail.com