June 19, 2001 NEWS CHAPEL HILL - In April, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers reported discovering how
misshapen red blood cells could stick to capillary walls as they
block blood flow and cause excruciating crises in patients with
sickle cell disease. Now, they have made another, possibly more
important discovery -- that a protein called thrombospondin in
the blood largely controls, or activates, that sticking process.
"This is incredibly exciting to us because it represents a whole
new way of thinking about sickle cell adhesion," said Dr. Julia
E. Brittain, postdoctoral fellow in pharmacology at UNC. "Our
new work suggests it should be possible to improve treatment for
the inherited disorder by finding one or more compounds that
will neutralize the protein, something we have already done in
the laboratory." Sickle cell disease, also called sickle cell
anemia, is the most common lethal genetic illness among blacks
in the United States. About 150 in every 100,000 black children
and young