December 2, 2025

1 min read

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Video: Highlights from a Sickle Cell Disease Event

Scientific American hosted an event at Morehouse School of Medicine to highlight medical advances in treating sickle cell disease and how far we still have to go

By Jeanna Bryner

Digital illustration, healthy red blood cells flowing inside a vein

Pixelimage/Getty Images

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This article is part of “Innovations In: Sickle Cell Disease,” an editorially independent special report that was produced with financial support from Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

Here is a highlight reel from an incredible event put on by Scientific American and supported by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and the Springer Nature Black Employees Network in September at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. The day was filled with powerful and hopeful voices who explained the awareness and hardships related to the disease, the nitty-gritty science of its causes and manifestations, and advances in treatment and care, as well as real impacts in patients’ and their families’ lives.

Hear from the researchers, students and those living with sickle cell disease on how to create a brighter future through science, community and inspiring stories.

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For more on sickle cell disease, check out our special report:

Jeanna Bryner is executive editor of Scientific American. Previously she was editor in chief of Live Science and, prior to that, an editor at Scholastic's Science World magazine. Bryner has an English degree from Salisbury University, a master’s degree in biogeochemistry and environmental sciences from the University of Maryland and a graduate science journalism degree from New York University. She has worked as a biologist in Florida, where she monitored wetlands and did field surveys for endangered species, including the gorgeous Florida Scrub Jay. She also received an ocean sciences journalism fellowship from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She is a firm believer that science is for everyone and that just about everything can be viewed through the lens of science.

More by Jeanna Bryner

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