I was born in Alabama in the Jim Crow South, one of eight siblings in a hard-working Black farming community. Our family doctor, a leading figure in the community, inspired me to follow in his footsteps and help people in need.
Years later, while working as a physician in Massachusetts, I was appalled to observe how many medicines failed to benefit society’s most vulnerable, in particular people of color. I soon shifted my career into drug development, because I felt I could improve health care on a bigger scale through innovation.
In particular, I wanted to help patients with sickle cell disease, whom I’d seen endure terrible discrimination. Sickle cell is an inherited blood condition that leads to pain, organ failure, and early death. It affects some 100,000 people in the United States, 90% of whom are of African descent, and millions more around the world. Small children with the disease face high death rates. And yet the U.S. health care system failed to properly address it.
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