Marie Claire Chelini, Trinity Communications
What if one disease could unlock insights into dozens of diseases? This is the ambition underlying a new federal grant led by Charmaine Royal(link opens in a new window/tab), Professor of African & African American Studies(link opens in a new window/tab) and Biology(link opens in a new window/tab), which aims to transform how researchers and clinicians understand pain in people living with sickle cell disease, moving beyond one-size-fits-all approaches to capture the complex realities of individual patient experiences.
Sickle cell disease refers to a group of inherited blood disorders characterized by the predominance of sickle hemoglobin (HbS), caused by an alteration in a single gene: the hemoglobin subunit beta, or HBB, which is responsible for the production of hemoglobin — the molecule that binds to oxygen inside red blood cells.