Curative Therapy Assessment of Sickle Cell Disease

Study Purpose

The purpose of this study is to see if a new product called a Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) Biochip can be used as an inexpensive and simple test to focus on important changes in usual cell behavior. We will look at the number and type of blood cells that stick to the Biochip and compare the results to patient clinical health. We will also study the flexibility, heaviness, and makeup of the blood cells, and flow of the blood. The advantage of using this technology is that the Biochip only uses a few drops of blood to give results, which is helpful for patients who have a shortage of blood cells because of their sickle cell disease. We are trying to find out if any, or maybe all, of the cell behaviors identified from this simple blood test can be used to measure a patient's response after they have a curative therapy for their sickle cell disease. We are hoping that this will tell us when a patient with SCD can be thought of as 'cured' after a bone marrow transplant or gene therapy. We are also trying to verify the usefulness of our Biochip as a clinical test so that it can be used more widely in the future to tell us more about the responses of patients to different therapies for sickle cell disease.