Gene may open door for new sickle cell therapies

piggy submitted, created time 1 month 1 day (www.reuters.com)

U.S. researchers have discovered a gene switch that could lead to better treatments for sickle cell disease and thalassemia, two inherited blood disorders that affect millions of people, they said on Thursday.

Learning how to activate this switch might help doctors direct the body to make healthier blood cells -- in this case, replicating conditions found in the womb.
People with these blood disorders either make too little or abnormal forms of hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that is vital for carrying oxygen to the body's tissues

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Blood tests may show inherited diseases in fetuses

sea-maid submitted, created time 1 month 1 week (www.reuters.com)

Doctors may soon be able to diagnose inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis, thalassaemia and sickle cell anemia in fetuses by simply testing a blood sample taken from the mother.

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Celiac disease cured after leukemia treatment

annatto submitted, created time 1 year 2 months (www.reutershealth.com)

The findings of a case report of a child with leukemia indicate that celiac disease, a common digestive problem in which the body cannot breakdown and absorb a protein found in wheat, may resolve following stem cell transplantation.

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Long-term results of related myeloablative stem-cell transplantation to cure sickle cell disease

Siegfried submitted, created time 1 year 3 months (bloodjournal.hematologylibrary.org)

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) is the only curative treatment for sickle cell disease (SCD); nevertheless, its use has been limited by the risk of transplantation-related mortality (TRM).Between November 1988 and December 2004, 87 consecutive patients with severe SCD ranging from 2 to 22 years of age received transplants in France.

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Classical beta-globin sickle haplotypes exhibit a high degree of long-range haplotype similarity in African and Afro-Caribbean populations

sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 4 months (www.biomedcentral.com)

"Researchers find no evidence that selective pressures imposed by falciparum malaria varied in intensity or timing between these subpopulations. Their observations also suggest that cis acting loci, which may influence outcomes in sickle cell disease, could lie considerable distances away from beta-globin.'

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Sickle cell disease: old discoveries, new concepts, and future promise

medal submitted, created time 1 year 8 months (www.jci.org)

"The discovery of the molecular basis of sickle cell disease was an important landmark in molecular medicine. The modern tools of molecular and cellular biology have refined our understanding of its pathophysiology and facilitated the development of new therapies. In this review, we discuss some of the important advances in this field and the impediments that limit the impact of these advances. "

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