Edited by Stephen H. Embury, Robert P. Hebbel, Narla Mohandas, and Martin H. Steinberg. 902 pp., illustrated. New York, Raven Press, 1994. $145. ISBN 0-7817-0142-2.
Hemoglobin S arose as a protection against malarial infection.However, it has also given rise to untold misery, pain, andsuffering in hundreds of thousands of people who happen to behomozygous for the sickle-cell gene. The multiple causes ofthe disease and its complications have been meticulously studied.There are now few diseases that are better understood —biochemically, pathophysiologically, clinically, and pharmacologically— than sickle cell disease. Yet this knowledge has yieldedfew therapeutic interventions other than those used to treatcomplications or symptoms of the disease. Recently, though,quantum leaps in scientific technology indicate that a cure. . . [Full Text of this Article]
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