Comprehensive Thalassemia Center

Life-Saving Research—Medical Breakthroughs & Cures

• The Center was established in 1991 by Elliott Vichinsky, MD. to diagnose and treat children with blood disorders, cancers, and tumors. Dr. Vichinsky directs North America's largest hemoglobinopathy center for sickle cell disease and thalassemia and has been instrumental in implementing screening programs for blood diseases in newborns in California and around the world.
• Dr. Vichinsky also works with the World Health Organization to study the worldwide public health problems of thalassemia and sickle cell disease. As both a research scientist and a clinician, he fosters collaboration between physicians and scientists, a partnership that speeds important research findings from the laboratory to the bedside in a process known as translational research.
• Dr. Vichinsky was responsible for the development of the Blood and Marrow Transplantation Program, which has cured hundreds of children with sickle cell anemia, thalassemia, and various cancers. He has developed techniques that make blood safer for chronically transfused patients, who often suffer iron overload as a result of either transfusion therapy or genetic mutations—a condition that causes thousands of deaths each year. Dr. Vichinsky has been an international leader in developing drugs that remove excess iron as well as non-invasive equipment that measures iron in the body.
• Dr. Vichinsky has led investigations of novel drugs that turn on hemoglobin-producing genes and enable sickle cell disease and thalassemia patients to produce their own healthy blood. He has authored and co-authored more than 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals, four books, and is editor-in-chief of the journal Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.