Skip to main content
Zahara & Kesha Weeks

Our Vision

Accelerate the development of 
gene therapies aimed at curing sickle cell disease.

Our Mission

The Cure Sickle Cell Initiative was created by the 
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to:

  1. Use emerging safe and promising gene therapies to improve the lives of individuals with sickle cell disease.
  2. Actively engage the sickle cell disease community of patients, family members, caregivers and advocates to work together on a path to the cure.
  3. Encourage collaboration among researchers, industry, non-profit organizations, and policy-making agencies who will play a role in curing the disease.

Highlights of the
Cure Sickle Cell Initiative

Collaborators

FEDERAL AGENCIES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)
DHHS Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)
DHHS Office of Minority Health (OMH)
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
National Institutes of Health (NIH)

FEDERAL INITIATIVES

Biologic Specimen and Data Repository (BioLINCC)
Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network (BMT CTN)
Center for International Blood & Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR)
Gene Therapy Resource Program
Production Assistance for Cellular Therapies (PACT)
Sickle Cell Disease Implementation Consortium (SCDIC)

FUNDING AWARDEES

Beckman Research Institute/City of Hope
Boston Children’s Hospital
Case Western University
Emmes
Emory University
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Harvard University
Medical College of Wisconsin
Research Triangle Institute (RTI)
Rice University
University of California Los Angeles
University of California San Francisco
University of Washington
Vanderbilt University

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING (MOU)

American Society of Hematology (ASH)
California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM)