{"id":898152,"date":"2026-06-28T07:13:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/898152\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T07:13:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:13:20","slug":"louisiana-notches-a-sickle-cell-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/898152\/","title":{"rendered":"Louisiana Notches a Sickle Cell First"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n A 23-year-old from suburban New Orleans may have just opened a new chapter in how Louisiana treats one of its most persistent health problems. The Guardian<\/a> reports that Daniel Cressy of Metairie is the first person in the Gulf Coast region to be “functionally cured” of sickle cell disease using gene-editing therapy. Cressy underwent a two-year process at Manning Family Children’s Hospital in New Orleans that relied on Casgevy’s CRISPR\/Cas9 technology: Doctors collected his cells, sent them to Scotland to be genetically altered, wiped out his sickle cells with chemotherapy, then infused the modified cells back into his body. \n <\/p>\n


\n On Monday, after a month of inpatient recovery, he rang the hospital’s ceremonial bell and was declared functionally cured. It’s potentially a big deal for Louisiana, the state with the nation’s highest sickle cell rate per capita. It’s also a big deal for Cressy, who dreamed of becoming a commercial pilot\u2014a job the FAA wouldn’t consider him for while he had the inherited blood disorder, which WDSU<\/a> reports is the world’s most common genetic blood disorder. \n <\/p>\n


\n A press release<\/a> from the hospital explains that Cressy appealed to the FAA in 2023 to request reconsideration. “The answer came back [that] if I could cure my sickle cell disease either through a bone marrow transplant or through gene therapy, then I could become a pilot.” Now that he has done so, he’s focused on flying, a planned book, and a new aviation-focused nonprofit. For more on his treatment and what it could mean for others, read the full piece<\/a>. \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A 23-year-old from suburban New Orleans may have just opened a new chapter in how Louisiana treats…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":898153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[11],"tags":[14491,210,353,115801,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-898152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-gene-therapy","tag-health","tag-louisiana","tag-sickle-cell-disease","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116826499115524742","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}