According to Charlie Harvey Sickle Cell disease has been significantly reduced in mice afflicted with the illness. Apparently Stuart Orkin, a researcher from Harvard Medical School and his colleagues, turned off the BCL11A gene in mice belonging to a strain that normally develops a sickle cell-like condition. The mice altered showed significant reduction in signs of their disease. Adult mice produced twenty times more fetal hemoglobin (fetal hemoglobin is purportedly healthy until adulthood in normally affected individuals) than normal and their blood contained almost no sickle-shaped cells. Furthermore, the spleen and kidneys, which are organs typically damaged by the effects of the disease, were almost one hundred percent healthy. Although studies have not been conducted on humans, researchers hope this will provide a valuable tool in treating the disease in the future.
It would be difficult to treat this disease since malaria and sickle cell disease are related in a way that those who are heterozygous for the sickle cell trait have an increased resistance to malaria. So, treating the disease would be complicated in areas with high prevalance of malaria.
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