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BIRMINGHAM, AL (WBRC / Gray News) – A clinical trial that could lead to universal treatment of sickle cell disease will be conducted at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, in the coming months.
"I thought about it and prayed," said Diva Hill. The 21-year-old Bessemer patient said that the intense pain of the disease made her need a cane to cross the stage at the end of high school. and has already hospitalized three times this year.
However, Dr. Julie Kanter, director of the UAB Adult Sickle Cell program, says the medical center has just been approved to participate in a clinical trial that began at the National Institutes of Health about five years ago.
This gene therapy approach removes the patient's stem cells, adds a corrective gene that prevents the patient's red blood cells from forming in a sickle-shaped form, and brings back the cells using a form of the AIDS virus whose harmful elements have been eliminated.
Kanter, who recently left the South Carolina Medical University to settle at the UAB, said the treatment was successful with patients who had tried it.
"There was one patient in particular, he was an NIH patient, he ran three miles in six months and never ran three miles of his life," Kanter said.
For about 20 years, doctors have been able to eliminate the symptoms of sickle cell disease by transfusions of bone marrow in patients whose donors were part of the immediate family.
UAB is about two months from the start of the trial of this therapy, which, according to Kanter, could result in a universal cure and commercially available in a few years if all goes well.
When that happens, Diva Hill will be ready. Given the chance to live a life without the unpredictable pain of sickle cell disease, Hill knows exactly where she wants to learn to become a nurse.
"I was trying to enlist in the army and get my family out of Bessemer and take care of them because they take care of me throughout my life," said Hill.
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