Sickle cell patient's success with gene editing raises hopes and questions
A Mississippi woman's life has been transformed by a treatment for sickle cell disease with the gene-editing technique CRISPR. All her symptoms from a disease once thought incurable have disappeared.
Victoria Gray was wandering through the British Museum in London last week when she spotted a small wooden cross hanging on the wall.
"It's nice seeing all the old artifacts, especially the cross," Gray said. "Religion is something that I hold close to my heart, and my faith is what brought me this far."
Almost four years ago, Gray became one of the first patients with a genetic disorder — and the first patient with sickle cell disease — to get an experimental treatment that uses the revolutionary gene-editing technique known as CRISPR.
Today, all of Gray's symptoms are gone, and she was in London last week to describe her landmark experience at the . The summit brought together more than 400 scientists, doctors, patients,
