At just 24, Chantez “CJ” Sanford is quietly making Michigan medical history. He is the first person in the state to receive LYFGENIA, a one-time gene therapy designed to keep the red blood cells that cause sickle cell disease from twisting into the painful, damaging shapes that have dominated his life.
Sanford, who was diagnosed with sickle cell disease as an infant and relied on monthly blood transfusions for years, said he lost a sister to complications from the illness when she was 20. After receiving the treatment in December 2025, he told clinicians he is already feeling healthier. Hospital teams say they will keep a close eye on him in the coming months and years as the engineered stem cells engraft and as doctors track how durable the therapy’s effects turn out to be.
As reported by FOX 2 Detroit, Sanford traveled from Georgia to the Children’s Hospital of Michigan in December 2025 to receive the Lyfgenia transfusion. Dr. Sureyya Savasan told the station, “CJ is one of the best so far, in my experience, he did really well,” and clinicians said they expect the modified stem cells to expand and gradually replace his sickled cells. The hospital noted that Sanford had come there for monthly blood transfusions as a child and that he will remain under long-term monitoring as part of the gene-therapy program.
What Lyfgenia Does
Lyfgenia (lovotibeglogene autotemcel) is what doctors call an autologous ex vivo lentiviral gene therapy. In plain terms, clinicians collect a patient’s own hematopoietic stem cells, add a working β-globin gene in the lab, then return those engineered cells so the body can make adult hemoglobin that is far more resistant to sickling…