As one of the most prevalent genetic disorders, a great number of researchers have been focusing on finding a treatment for sickle cell anemia. Many believe they have found a possible treatment to the disorder and gene therapy is seen as the best way to treat it. The disease works as cells with a specific mutation in the gene that produces B-globin causes protein to form wrong. Gene therapy hopes to add a functioning version of the gene to an afflicted persons bone marrow by using a virus. So far the idea has been formulated but the treatment is far from complete.
While this research is promising and has great potential it seems like its at least a few years away. The rest of the article gave a lot more important info as it explained how it is hard to research the disease as many people who have it live in Sub Saharan Africa where there are fewer research centers. The advances and difficulties in gene therapy were listed quite well and made me much more interested in how research in this field is physically done.
Article:https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03698-8
I think this is very interesting! It seems as if it could be very helpful for many people around the world. However, if people are "cured" of anemia, will they lose the immunity to malaria?
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