How CRISPR Therapy Cured this Black Man’s Sickle Cell |By
Daniel Cressy, 23, was diagnosed with sickle cell anaemia—a serious, inherited blood disorder caused by a genetic mutation that distorts red blood cells—as an infant. The disease, which predominantly affects African Americans, misshapen cells in small blood vessels, restricting blood flow and causing severe pain and organ damage, and could even shorten life spans, according to the World Health Organization.
“I don’t want anybody else to have to experience the loneliness and the uncertainty and the hopelessness that I felt a couple of years ago,” Cressy said. But he refused to let that hopelessness dictate his future. Instead of giving up when he found out he wouldn’t be able to achieve his dream of flying the friendly skies, he started searching for a medical miracle. And he found it.
Cressy chose gene editing therapy, according to the Guardian. The revolutionary approach, approved by the FDA and the world’s first CRISPR/Cas9-based medicine, permanently alters a patient’s own stem cells, eliminating the need for traditional bone marrow transplants from matched donors.
The magic happens once those modified cells return home. Re-infused into a patient’s body, they attached to bone marrow, reproduce rapidly and crank up the production of fetal hemoglobin. This specific protein delivers oxygen, and its presence acts as a natural off-switch for the disorder, the FDA said. With fetal hemoglobin dominating a patient’s system, their red blood cells are physically prevented from sickling.
For Cressy, the process took two years before he was admitted to Manning Family Children’s hospital’s Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, which treated him with chemotherapy to eliminate his sickle cells. “This entire journey was the hardest thing I’ve been through in my life,” Cressy shared during a press conference, according to WBKO 13.
After a month in inpatient recovery, he was able to do the unthinkable.
History was made on Monday (June 22) as Cressy rang the hospital’s ceremonial bell, signaling the end of his battle with sickle cell after doctors said the disease is now no longer active in his system.
Cressy’s “greatest blessing” made him the first patient from the U.S. Gulf Coast region to successfully undergo the cutting-edge Casgevy CRISPR/Cas9 gene therapy.
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