A teenager who once needed emergency hospital care every two weeks has become the first person in the UK to complete a gene-editing cure for sickle cell disease — and she is already back at school as a prefect.

Aisha, 15, from Cheadle in Greater Manchester, has had sickle cell disease since birth. Her crises were frequent and severe enough that she was in and out of A&E for medication and blood transfusions roughly every fortnight, missing huge stretches of school along the way.

  • 15 years old when she rang the bell marking the end of treatment
  • Hospital crises every 2 weeks before the therapy, at their worst
  • 22 million of her own stem cells collected and sent away for editing
  • ~15,000 people live with sickle cell disease in the UK today

What the treatment actually does

The therapy is called Casgevy, a gene-editing treatment that edits a patient's own blood stem cells rather than relying on a donor. It was approved for use across the NHS in February 2025 by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), after regulators judged it a viable option for the most severe cases where other treatments had failed.

Because Aisha's sickle cell disease was so severe, clinical teams at Royal Manchester Children's Hospital pushed for her case to be raised with regional and national sickle cell panels. The process itself is intense: roughly 22 million cells need to be collected, flown to the Netherlands for editing, and returned around six months later for transplant back into the patient alongside chemotherapy.

Aisha described the physical toll plainly: she lost hair, her muscles weakened, and she spent two months in hospital on feeds, with only her mother allowed to visit because her immunity was so low.

"My sickle cell crises start off as a tingling pain in an area of my body... the pain then grows to flashing and pulsating and spreads across my body. Almost like hammering and chiselling on your bones," Aisha said, describing life before treatment.

Back at school, pain-free

Aisha was discharged from hospital on 29 June 2026 and has spent the months since recovering at home. She no longer experiences sickle cell crises, though she is still receiving care for muscle pain caused by earlier damage from the disease.

She has now returned to school for her final year as a prefect — a role she says she has aspired to since year seven, when she first looked up to the older students showing new pupils around.

Her mother, Hamdat, who also lives with sickle cell disease, said the decision to go ahead was not easy: "I had to read medical journals just to understand what I was saying yes to. But I also understood the risks of not doing anything for my daughter."

Consultant paediatric haematologist Srividhya Senthil, who treated Aisha, called the result a turning point: "Casgevy is a transformative treatment, and it feels wonderful to know that Aisha's life has changed. She has a good immune system, she's back in school and leading a very normal life."

Sickle cell disease mainly affects Black African and Black Caribbean communities in the UK and can cause strokes, organ damage and a shortened life expectancy. Senthil said she is hopeful the treatment becomes available to younger children as more cases like Aisha's move through the system, detailed in Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust's full account of her treatment, with background on the condition available via the NHS sickle cell disease overview.