On Monday morning in New Orleans, 23-year-old Daniel Cressy rang a bell inside Manning Family Children’s hospital and stepped into what he calls “Life 2” — a life, for the first time, free of sickle cell disease.
His treatment using Casgevy’s CRISPR/Cas9, a gene-editing technology, makes him the first patient in Louisiana and the Gulf South to receive the therapy. It is a milestone that doctors say signals a turning point for a disease that has long devastated Black communities with too few answers and even fewer options.
“While many spend their lives searching for purpose, mine found me,” Cressy said after being found sickle cell free. “Now, instead of looking for meaning, I can spend my life fulfilling it.”
Cressy’s bell-ringing is the latest in a string of firsts reshaping the country’s approach to sickle cell. In 2024, 21-year-old Sebastien Beauzile became the first in New York to be treated. Declaring afterward, “I feel unstoppable.”
Earlier this year, 24-year-old Chantez Sanford Jr. became the first person in Michigan to receive Lyfgenia — the second FDA-approved gene therapy — at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, reporting more energy and fewer pain episodes just months later.
Both treatments were approved by the FDA in December 2023, and are now itching toward being used more widely.
The stakes are high. Sickle cell disease affects approximately 100,000 people in the United States, with more than 90% being Black. Louisiana, the second-Blackest state in the U.S., carries one of the highest per-capita burdens of any state in the country.
The hospital’s chief executive officer, Lucio Fragoso, said Cressy’s cure provided a substantial reason to “hope” for the South.
“Curative gene therapy is restoring futures, and Daniel has paved the way for what is possible together with his care team,” Fragoso said. “This is a proud and transformational moment for all of us.”
Diagnosed as an infant, Cressy had long harbored a dream of becoming a commercial airline pilot — until the federal government told him his sickle cell diagnosis was disqualifying. He appealed, but the answer didn’t budge. A cure was his only option.
When Manning Family Children’s hospital received approval to offer the gene-editing treatment, Cressy began working with his doctors. In late 2025, his cells were sent to Scotland for genetic modification, returned to New Orleans this March, and infused back into his body on March 18.
Sickle cell disease causes red blood cells — normally round and flexible — to harden into a rigid, crescent shape that can’t move easily through blood vessels. Those misshapen cells block blood flow and oxygen delivery to organs and tissue, triggering episodes of excruciating pain, strokes, and over time, irreversible organ damage. The disease is most prevalent among people whose ancestors come from regions where malaria was historically endemic, namely sub-Saharan Africa. In the U.S., it was passed down at higher rates through generations of descendants of enslaved Africans.
But even as the science advances, access remains an open and urgent question. Cressy’s treatment carries a list price of $2.2 million; Lyfgenia, runs $3.1 million. The very communities most burdened by sickle cell disease are also, structurally, the least positioned to navigate a $3 million treatment pathway.
Studies show that those diagnosed with sickle cell disease are more likely to be poor and face challenges with access to stable housing and healthy food.
Between 50% and 60% of people living with sickle cell disease are enrolled in Medicaid, a program that has historically struggled to connect people with high-cost medical therapies. As of December 2025, only 33 states and two territories had opted into a model designed to standardize Medicaid access to sickle cell treatments — leaving significant gaps. Cressy, who joins about 100 other Americans who’ve received this treatment, was able to access care under Louisiana’s Medicaid program.
Cressy knows that weight, and says he feels a sense of obligation because of it.
“I feel like God chose me to be the first one in the state because my story, once I do finally become a commercial pilot, is going to be inspirational for a lot of people,” he said. “Overcoming what seemed impossible became my greatest blessing.”
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