By 1986, nearly every newborn in the U.S. underwent screening for sickle cell disease, a potentially fatal and painful disease caused by a genetic mutation. A rare condition, sickle cell disease only occurs in people who inherit a faulty HBB gene from both parents. The mutation causes hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen through the body, to stick together—forming a sickle shape.
For those newborns who only have one faulty HBB gene, their parents may have received a letter from the hospital explaining their newborn has sickle cell trait. It may become a concern if they have children with another sickle cell trait carrier when they’re older, but otherwise, they should live a long and healthy life with no symptoms of sickle cell disease.
And that’s a problem, says Tomia Austin, PhD, As One Foundation’s executive director.
Understanding sickle cell trait
Because of the lack of awareness and research, many children and young adults grow up not understanding they have sickle cell trait. In fact, in rare cases, individuals with only one HBB gene mutation can still fall ill or even die from sickle cell disease-like symptoms, especially at high altitudes, during extreme exercise, or during severe dehydration.
Devard Darling, president and founder of the As One Foundation, was inspired to create the organization after his twin brother, a college athlete, died due to complications of sickle cell trait.
Darling asked Austin to lead the organization’s efforts to improve sickle cell trait literacy, not only for carriers and their families but also for the medical community.
“A lot of what’s going on with sickle cell trait is just personal stories. People are living it,” Austin says. “Doctors don’t know what they don’t know about sickle cell trait. There’s not enough research being done for sickle cell disease, let alone sickle cell trait.”
In addition to educational webinars, social media, events, and outreach to other sickle cell-focused organizations, Austin says there is a high need for evidence-based programming.
Using Luna to develop a sickle cell trait registry
“I thought, ‘what if I could pull together a registry to capture all of these patient experiences with pain and symptoms’,” she says. After reaching out to Genetic Alliance in 2020, As One Foundation applied and received funding and guidance to build a registry.
The registry queries participants on pain, chronic fatigue, muscle aches, pain recovery, physical activity, and other information. Because sickle cell trait problems can occur during activities like mountain climbing and deep-sea diving, Austin says they try to capture those scenarios where the person may have had a reaction that, at the time, they may not have attributed to sickle cell trait. Gathering this self-reported data through the registry will be important to developing evidence-based results.
Austin is currently enrolling participants in the Sickle Cell Hemoglobinopathy Pain and Symptom Registry with the goal of having it completed by the fall of 2023. She’s already three-quarters of the way there. She’s eager to dive into the data and share the results with the sickle cell community in the hopes of generating more research interest.
Research begins by knowing the right questions to ask
To help encourage participation, Austin is reaching out to collaborate with other sickle cell disease organizations. “The majority of caregivers to sickle cell disease patients are people who are living with sickle cell trait,” she says. In fact, although sickle cell disease is considered rare (1 case per 15,000 births), about one in 13 U.S. newborns with African ancestry are diagnosed with sickle cell trait.
In addition to educating individuals on the complications of sickle cell trait, Austin is also open to talking about the historical or cultural issues when it comes to research studies in the Black communities.
“I’m very proactive in telling potential participants that they own their data when they join the registry. Their health data belongs to them. If at any point they are not comfortable with the study, they can exit the process,” she says. “Having sensitive health information safe and secure on Luna is a benefit, as well as the fact that participants always control their own health data.”
“I also tell them ‘This is your opportunity to have your voice heard.’”
To learn more about conducting community-led research on the Luna platform, visit Communities or contact collaborations@lunadna.com.
About Luna
Luna’s suite of tools and services connects communities with researchers to accelerate health discoveries. With participation from more than 180 countries and communities advancing causes including disease-specific, public health, environmental, and emerging interests, Luna empowers these collectives to gather a wide range of data—health records, lived experience, disease history, genomics, and more—for research.
Luna gives academia and industry everything they need from engagement with study participants to data analysis across multiple modalities using a common data model. The platform is compliant with clinical regulatory requirements and international consumer data privacy laws.
By providing privacy-protected individuals a way to continually engage, Luna transforms the traditional patient-disconnected database into a dynamic, longitudinal discovery environment where researchers, industry, and community leaders can leverage a range of tools to surface insights and trends, study disease natural history and biomarkers, and enroll in clinical studies and trials.