• Question: do you thing you can cure sicklecell

    Asked by Brandon to Alex, Ali, Kerry, Philip, Theo on 10 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by Brandon.
    • Photo: Alex Pool

      Alex Pool answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      Hi Brandon,

      Certainly wish I could, it can lead to a lot of pain for those who have the disease.

      Sadly at the moment there are only ways of trying to stop the pain. There are drugs that are designed to try and change the haemoglobin that your red blood cells carry round (the cells that are affected by sickle cell) to try and help relieve the symptoms, and they seem to work well.

      As sickle cell is a genetic disease where your DNA is coded differently to people without the disease it makes it much harder to treat than other diseases.

    • Photo: Philip Ratcliffe

      Philip Ratcliffe answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Me personally, surely not, unless quark therapy turns out to be possible and useful (just joking – it can’t).
      Everyday the cure for something that was previously incurable is discovered, so it’s probably only a question of time.

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