NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - A 23-year-old New Orleans man became the first person in Louisiana to be functionally cured of sickle cell disease through gene therapy.

Daniel Cressy underwent the procedure at Manning Family Children’s Hospital. The disease is no longer active in his system.

Cressy said his dream of becoming a pilot was almost taken away from him because of the blood disorder. He said it was a two-year journey under the procedure, and he wants to pay that forward with his own nonprofit to help other people going through sickle cell treatment.

A difficult journey

“This entire journey was the hardest thing I’ve been in my life, and the reason why I worked so hard with our organization, Privileged Pilots, is because I don’t want anybody else to have to experience the loneliness and the uncertainty and the hopelessness that I felt a couple of years ago,” Cressy said.

“Someone’s ability to access treatment and potentially cure should not be defined by their zip code,” Cressy said. “People in Louisiana deserve the same opportunity as people anywhere else in this country. The people living with sickle cell disease are here. They are neighbors, our friends, our families.”

How the therapy works

Doctors said the therapy uses a patient’s own stem cells that have been edited in a lab so they no longer produce the defective cells that cause the disease.

Around 3,000 people in Louisiana have sickle cell disease.

See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Click Here to report it. Please include the headline.

Subscribe to the Fox 8 YouTube channel.

Copyright 2026 WVUE. All rights reserved.