Black 12-Year-Old First Person To Get Sickle Cell Therapy [Video]

Last Wednesday, Kendric Cromer, a 12-year-old Black patient from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., became the first person in the world to receive a groundbreaking gene therapy treatment that may cure sickle cell disease (SCD).

According to the New York Times (NYT), Cromer began the first step of his extensive treatment process at the Children’s National Hospital in Washington on Wednesday. Bluebird — one of two companies given authorization by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to create a gene therapy method for sickle cell —  administered the process. According to the outlet, doctors removed parts of Cromer’s bone marrow stem cells that will be “genetically modified” in a specialized lab for his treatment.

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The process will take months to complete. Bluebird will need to collect hundreds of millions of stem cells from Cromer, a grueling procedure that will …