Sickle cell disease: advances in the 1970s and challenge in the 1980s.

During the past 10 years considerable progress has been made in understanding the molecular and cellular events responsible for sickling. This information should be valuable in designing effective and safe therapy for this disease. Current studies on the natural history of sickle cell disease should permit the development of improved methods of patient care. The techniques of modern molecular biology have been successfully applied to antenatal diagnosis of sickle cell disease. These techniques may eventually be applied to the control of fetal hemoglobin synthesis in sickle red cells and to the insertion of normal beta globin genes in to bone marrow.