Sickle Cell Anemia

For years, it was thought that sickle-cell anemia was incurable. But this judgement appears to have been made in error.

Dr. Francis Collins, as reported by CBS' 60 Minutes, says he has a cure.

According to Dr. Collins, he and his partners have been able to conduct gene therapy, by extracting stem cells from the patient's bone marrow. He then implants a corrected version of the gene into an HIV virus. Each individual virus has the AIDS causing genetic material removed. Next, the correct gene is placed in the HIV virus. After this, the modified viruses are allowed to infect the stem cells collected from the patient, correcting the genetic code in the stem cells. Finally, the modified stem cells are placed back into the patient. This type of gene therapy has appeared to cure multiple patients, including Jennelle Stephenson, and Lynndrick Holmes. According to WebMD, the program that cured Holmes is sponsored by Bluebird Bio, and has testing sites around the country.