Sickle cell gene therapy helps man overcome disease after 20 years
Twenty-year-old Martin Mwita Jr. said an FDA-approved treatment eliminated nearly all sickle cells
ST. LOUIS (Aging Untold) — A 20-year-old Nebraska man traveled to St. Louis in 2025 seeking a treatment for sickle cell anemia he and his mother had spent years trying to find. After undergoing a gene therapy called Lyfgenia, Martin Mwita Jr. said the results showed that his body was nearly free of sickle cells.
The Food and Drug Administration approved Lyfgenia as a sickle cell treatment in late 2023.
How the disease works
Sickle cell anemia causes red blood cells to become abnormally shaped. Those cells can clump together, block blood vessels and trigger severe pain, organ damage and life-threatening complications.
Aging Untold expert and board-certified physician Dr. Rhea Rogers said the disease affects nearly every part of a patient’s life.
“You’re destroying red cells and you’re blocking blood flow. So, anytime you have no blood flow anywhere that’s very painful if you get a crisis,” Rogers said.
How the therapy works
Rogers described the therapy process as a multistep procedure involving a patient’s own stem cells.
“Gene therapy is where they’re removing their stem cells from their blood. So, they’re removing the blood with the stem cells and they’re going to treat those cells and try to cure those cells, but at the same time they’re giving them high-dose chemotherapy and they’re hoping that what they put back in gives them more of the normal red blood cells,” Rogers said.
Mwita’s results
After treatment, Mwita learned that 85% of his hemoglobin had converted to hemoglobin A — an indicator that the therapy had worked.
“Seeing the results of it, like what it actually means for me to be cured of sickle cell after 20 years, I think it was absolutely worth it looking back,” Mwita said.
Rogers said the therapy is not appropriate for every patient, but those who qualify may see significant results.
“Everybody may not be a candidate that this is appropriate for, but, if it works, they look at the percentage of the cells that are now no longer sickles and these people are able to live normal lives like the rest of us,” Rogers said.
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