Michael R. DeBaun

Sickle cell disease damages blood cells, and among its most feared complications in children are strokes. Some are obvious; others are silent strokes, brain injuries that produce no symptoms at the time but show up on brain imaging. Michael R. DeBaun built his research program on that second kind, and on the question a parent actually asks: can the next stroke be prevented?

In the Silent Cerebral Infarct Transfusion (SIT) Trial, DeBaun and colleagues across many centers randomly assigned 196 children aged 5 to 15 with sickle cell anemia and prior silent cerebral infarcts to regular blood transfusion therapy or observation. The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2014, showed that regular transfusion therapy significantly reduced the recurrence of cerebral infarct in these children. By 2025, he had led eight controlled trials aimed at preventing strokes in people with sickle-cell disease across North America, Europe and Nigeria. In Nigeria, he has served as principal investigator of the Stroke Prevention in Nigeria trial, testing whether an affordable oral medication can protect children at high risk.

DeBaun founded the Charles Drew Community Blood Donation Campaign in 1999. His team also developed Sickle Cell Sabbath, working with faith communities to teach people about sickle-cell disease and encourage blood donation. The outreach grew from his work caring for children with the disease, where shortages of matched blood donors pose a direct treatment problem for patients who need transfusions.

A Howard University graduate, DeBaun earned his medical degree and a master's in health-services research at Stanford. He trained in pediatrics at St. Louis Children's Hospital and in hematology and oncology at Washington University. He also worked with colleagues and Senator Jim Talent on the Sickle Cell Treatment Act, enacted in 2004, a law designed to expand treatment and services for patients with the disease.

He joined Vanderbilt in 2010, where he directs the Vanderbilt-Meharry Sickle Cell Disease Center of Excellence and holds an endowed chair in pediatrics. His mentoring, a commitment he traces to a family of public school educators and coaches, earned awards in 2017 and 2019. In 2025, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.