According to Fyodor Urnov, she should be added to “the pantheon of names inscribed in golden letters in the history of biomedicine.” That list includes other pioneering patients such as James Phipps (the boy vaccinated by Edward Jenner), Albert Alexander (the first human treated with penicillin), Louise Brown (the first test tube baby) and Emily Whitehead (the first recipient of CAR-T cells). Now the CRISPR Journal made the unusual decision to put her on the cover.

In July 2019, Victoria Gray became the first U.S. sickle cell patient to receive the experimental treatment for sickle cell disease developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics (now known by the name Casgevy, and approved in UK, US and Europe). Take the time to read her “remarkable and moving story, told in her own words” in the February issue of the CRISPR Journal!