Leading Researcher to Head Sickle Cell Center at Howard U.
Howard University and Howard University Hospital recently announced the appointment of James G. Taylor as director of its Center for Sickle Cell Disease, a key U.S. institute for the study of new sickle cell drugs.
Taylor will serve as a professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology. He will also be an attending physician at Howard University Hospital.
“The Howard University Center for Sickle Cell Disease has a history of treating a high volume of patients,” Taylor said. “As a result, we have participated in every major clinical trial that has led to FDA-approved medications for sickle cell, including the recent FDA approval of L-glutamine, the first new medication in two decades. We continue to have an opportunity to make major scientific contributions in the field of non-malignant hematology.”
The Center for Sickle Cell Disease, founded in 1972 by the late Roland B. Scott, has a distinguished history of leading clinical investigation in sickle cell disease.
The center, which also has a long-standing commitment to research advocacy and community outreach, particularly screens for the sickle cell trait. However, the disease itself, as a severe hereditary blood disorder affecting 100,000 people in the United States, is prevalent in African-Americans and many other people of African descent throughout the world.
Taylor, who previously worked as a clinical investigator at the National Institutes of Health, is committed to further expanding Howard University’s clinical and translational research programs with a focus on new treatments and opportunities for curative therapy.
Taylor earned his medical degree with honors in 1995 in research from the Medical College of Wisconsin and completed a residency in pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine/St. Louis Children’s Hospital. He also served as a clinical fellow in pediatric hematology/oncology and a postdoctoral genetics research fellow at the National Cancer Institute and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
