Study of the Role of Genetic Modifiers in Hemoglobinopathies

Hemoglobinopathies, including sickle cell disease (SCD) and beta-thalassemia, are prevalent diseases with variable clinical manifestation and severity that are thought to be governed, in part, by genetic modifiers. Despite the identification and characterization of a few putative genetic modifiers by previous studies, these are as yet insufficient to guide treatment recommendations or risk-stratify patients reliably. Also, it is expected that many additional genetic variants exist that can modify disease and its severity. This large-scale genome-wide association study (GWAS) will utilize SNP c…