A Young Mississippi Woman's Journey Through A Pioneering Gene-Editing Experiment
When Victoria Gray was just 3 months old, her family discovered something was terribly wrong.
"My grandma was giving me a bath, and I was crying. So they took me to the emergency room to get me checked out," Gray says. "That's when they found out that I was having my first crisis."
It was Gray's first sickle cell crisis. These episodes are one of the worst things about sickle cell disease, a common and often devastating genetic blood disorder. People with the condition regularly suffer sudden, excruciating bouts of pain.
"Sometimes it feels like lightning strikes in my chest — and real sharp pains all over. And it's a deep pain. I can't touch it and make it better," says Gray. "Sometimes, I will be just balled up and crying, not able to do anything for myself.
Gray is now 34 and lives in Forest, Miss. She volunteered to become the first patient in the United States with a genetic disease to get treated with the revolutionary gene-editing technique known as CRISPR.
NPR got exclusive access to chronicle Gray's journey through this medical experiment, which is being watched closely for some of the first hints that changing a person's genes with CRISPR could provide a powerful new way to treat many diseases.
"This is both enormously exciting for sickle cell disease and for all those other conditions that are next in line," says Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.
"To be able to take this new technology and give people a chance for a new life is a dream come true," Collins says. "And here we are."
Doctors removed bone marrow cells from Gray's body, edited a gene inside them with CRISPR and infused the modified cells back into her system this summer. And it appears the cells are doing what scientists hoped — producing a protein that could alleviate the worst complications of sickle cell.
"We are of the in Nashville, Tenn., who is treating Gray.
